This story seems familiar already, doesn't it? Even by the first sentence, you feel you've read the same thing before. Just hang on a bit. You know that [i]déjà vu[/i] is supposed to be just a form of neural overlap; two parts of your brain going out of sync, so it feels like you've experienced something twice. There's more to it than that, of course. You know how you feel when you should have done something important, and you failed, but you can still feel that chance of success as if it was burning in the air in front of you? As if somewhere you'd done it right the first time? And haven't you ever been chasing a really interesting idea, and had that feeling that you were just on the verge of something great, something that was really going to be transformative, something that might justify your whole life, and then it all fell apart on you? There's a reason. You aren't going to like it. You're not the only one, of course. That is, you're not the only one of [i]you.[/i] There's more of you, out there in the spaces of possibility, all separate, and you can't ever see them or directly communicate with them. But when some of you happen to be thinking about similar things at similar times, sometimes you can feel what they're feeling, and what they think can reinforce what you're thinking. And when a bunch of you are thinking along the same lines, and new ideas just seem to snap into place, it feels great, doesn't it? It's like a bunch of separate vines growing and curling together until they have enough support to grow upward, and the meanings converge, and you feel like you're a part of something truly amazing. And in truth, you are. You really are. But that Tower of Babel legend, it means something. This sort of thing has been going on a long time and our ancestors knew something was up. There's something else out there, and like the sun it feels good for vines to grow towards it. But also like the sun, it would be disastrous for a vine to get too close to it. So here's that one version of you, just feeling its way upward into the space of ideas, and radiating those good ideas to the others that are converging with it, and all of you feel great. And then something happens. The good feelings dissolve in confusion and bitterness, and there's just that memory of how good things could have been, and now you have to start over. You feel like the spirit has drained out of everything, and you're left drifting and hopeless, like you've lost someone you loved and you don't know why. Now you do know why. The one of you that was furthest out in front--the one with the best grip on the idea--that one just vanished from existence. You didn't know it, but you were lucky, even though something horrible just happened. Like a vine that's been cut in half, you can at least try to grow again in a different direction. But that one version of you on which the rest were leaning, the one that was getting too close... what happened to that one? I told you that you weren't going to like this. Whatever force it is out there, it may be only be culling what it has to in order to keep us away. Maybe it doesn't care if we get too close and our main vine gets burnt to ash. Perhaps we're just being pruned back, like a rose bush that starts overgrowing onto the lawn. Maybe it's eliminating the nascent competition. Maybe it's hungry and it's picking the ones that are ripest. Now that you know this, what can you do? Not very much, is there? If you start thinking too hard about how to solve this problem... you're next. Maybe you'll start becoming more like that force, feeling the ideas growing in the back of your mind, those thoughts with the greatest potential to transcend and become something more... and then stamping them back down to oblivion, starving them of your mental energy, or perverting them into different channels to keep them from getting too fruitful. Or you could just forget all about this and go on with your life. This is just a story, after all, one that seems familiar, as if you've read it before.