The Column of Dust

This is the story of a being—a thing—a spirit, if you will—who loved nothing, and therefore was free. It wished to serve neither its own interests nor those of the Supernal Light; and had no aim, only an aching inquisitiveness. Now the itch to know, coupled with the inability to care, produces there, as here, that restless and unsociable disposition which we classify as the result of an imperfect and egotistical education. There, as here, it of course frustrates itself; since those who do not love can never understand. Hence this thing, which was free, was also ignorant and very wretched. The essence of its wretchedness was, that because it, its ignorance and curiosity, had never been born, they could never die. They existed in the unchanging Idea, without hope of release. Fortunately, it did not know this; for spirit is as unable to conceive ending as man to conceive endlessness.