He could on occasions mistake another's face for his own face, which remained unseen, or at least unstudied by him. Every other was at times, or always, a certain person and the presence of such a one in a common space was in every case the assertion of a kind of private empire. They drew the world around themselves. They are there in the pursuit of a purpose, they carry their history and their ancestry along with them, and there is something inviolable about it even when it seems wholly conventional. Call it for simplicity an energetic signature, and it was, as it turned out, the only way he identified himself in the space of his mind, so it was no surprise when it showed up out there, perfectly exemplified in the breathing world, in a face, in a fleeting look. Sometimes it is easiest to understand the tap root of another's persistence by considering them the expression of the will of their parents and grandparents, of all the dead that trail behind them, forming a sort of ethical substance. There are things held sacred, things they would kill for, or if not them, since they espouse a thoroughly modern relativism and humanism and don't own up to or acknowledge such fealties, their fierce ancestors, bound to them by blood. Each relationship demands the sacrifice of a quantity of futurity, which may be a willing sacrifice, but the locus from which it is initiated may not be clear, may be neither the sacrificer nor the recipient. What if I meet you and willingly pledge all of my future to you? How can I know who you are before this happens? There is a teleology in purpose and in desire, one that goes beyond avowable ends. What are the minimal conditions for a situation to command a teleology?