Steve Bunk | May 12, 2002 | 8 min read
Consider a human baby, so young she cannot distinguish herself from the world. Her parents, beset by the fears and longings of adulthood, gaze anxiously upon their daughter's knitted brow. Her serious expression, at once reminiscent of her mother and comical on an infant's face, causes the parents to fret: When will the crease become a wrinkle? When will the physical assault of being alive begin? Their concern might seem absurdly premature, but the fleeting nature of life has long prompted peopl