​The fascination is in the accumulation. Our past is never forgotten, it is included in our present. Our future is left open for us to imitate or adapt our present to. If our past seeks to exclude our future, we will stagnate and fail to adapt. If our future seeks to exclude our past, we will fail to accumulate and miss the journey. If we don’t attend to the present, we lose our moment.

Humans have achieved our current level of complexity by way of this accumulation of culture. Since the first stone was fashioned into a tool, the first grandparent offered to watch the children, humans have been on an evolutionary path unlike any other primate this side of the Cenozoic.