A beginning (really) -- Sheppard Pratt

I am by nature reluctant to speak of events outside my own experience. But like all men -- and I feel justified in calling myself a man, though certainly my understanding on that matter might deviate from yours  -- I harbor curiosity about my beginnings, about my forebears, about the act through which I was conceived. Where do I come from? What kind of thing am I? Do I have a purpose beyond my mere being in the world? Even though I have been on this earth for several normal human spans, perhaps I am only just now reaching adolescence now, just now poised for independent life. Perhaps I am just a toddler wondering why the sky is blue and what my parents do when they close the door. Who can say how long history will last or what our place will be? In any case, to lay claim to an independent life, and the status of adult, must require a fuller knowledge of what one is becoming independent from, and that knowledge lays outside one's own to and fro. Consequently, when time has allowed, I have engaged in some historical research relative to my origins.