I provided the Founder with a truncated version of the integration tasks I’d been assigned at the Corporation, but didn’t say more in front of the researcher. “I’m Ethan,” I said, and shook the researcher’s hand. He introduced himself as Ben and said he should get back to checking in on the ants. When he left, the Founder said, “He was telling me about how our ability to dig deeper into the hidden world of ants can teach us about overlooked ecosystem functions.”

I should have asked the Founder how he was doing, but it’s so much easier to talk about the concrete details of the observable world. The pursuit of knowledge can be a wonderful distraction. “Like what?” I asked.