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Toils
We pride ourselves on our work, but it is only play.
Our Highest Virtue
As I look about at the members of our species, I see our highest virtue in our indefatigable instinct for building and cultivation. The leaders of enterprise have risen to the top of an economy from which no person is omitted, and still the engine of their ambition powers forward. The most wretched soul, lost in this world and lying in the gutter, never fails to scrounge for themselves some small pleasure and token of self-betterment. Each and all of our neighbors tends to their plot, whether small or large, and finds employment each day in the steady effort of maintenance and the never-ending journey towards perfection. All people, in every place and time, have advanced on the understanding and invention of those that preceded them.
Each of us has for our natural inheritance the product of the industry of all our shared ancestry. Our homes are constructed of and filled with the fruits of labor from strangers whom we will never know. I sleep in comfort under a blanket; I eat at a table, silverware in hand; I drive a car wherever I wish each day, with all the comforts afforded to me at home; and all of these things, and innumerable more, are the yield of individuals, who — seeking to express themselves, meet their purpose, and fulfill their ambitions — created for…
