R. Buckminster Fuller said "I seem to be a verb". I think he meant something like this. I am not this blob of matter; not really. That is a slice, a snapshot of me. I am a pattern, a knot of information, moving through time. An incredibly complex knot, made of many smaller, microscopic knots, working together. My parents, who were similar knots, managed to split off tiny portions of their knots or patterns, and combine them into a new knot (actually they did this a lot, but only a few knots survived for a long time; at least four have still not unravelled. Eventually all knots unravel. Someday we may know enough to prevent it (would that it were so!). All our knots - yours, mine, the cat's - have survived to this day because it is the nature of our knots to tie new knots. This is life itself.