Trueblood on HBO

The same is true when we extend the family through time. We all have witnessed the phenomenon of "roots" in recent years. The ties of blood manifest themselves despite the years and despite the quarrels. The extended family is my family. People want to know where they are from and what their lineage is because these are important in knowing who they are. So there is search for the family tree, for the coat of arms, for the missing relatives.

We are more than individuals. We are parts of a much larger whole. To philosophize exclusively from the standpoint of one's individuality and self-interest is to miss this other truth: we are like knots in a vast net, and the reality of the resulting network of individuals expresses more of the truth than the mere sum of individuals. My responsibility, therefore, must go beyond the little knot I call myself. It extends to other people horizontally and vertically, especially and temporally.

The statement that I am my brother's keeper is part of the very fabric of human existence. I am part of species, and I share in the common responsibility for that species. What I do today lives on after me in my children, and in the children of those to whom I am related in the bond of humanness. My ultimate ideal, then, cannot be to self-interest or personal happiness, which will cease at my death, but to my perpetuation in the persons and things that carry on my reality as part of them. Even without reincarnation, my reality extends beyond my lifetime, for my life and my responsibilities are the threads out of which the future is woven.

What we bequeath to the future, therefore, is ourselves, and our responsibility to future generations is identical with our responsibility to ourselves. On this ultimate act rests the meaning of our lives here and now. We are more than individuals. We are part of the future. Nothing else means so much.