An Epilogue to Anthem

It is not a sin to write this. It is not a sin to think words no others think and to put them down upon a paper no others are to see. It is the opposite. It is the only path to one’s salvation. 

I am saved. By the grace of my own volition, I am saved. 

I have labored tirelessly to reach a point I did not know lay ahead. I did not think about what I needed to do. I only did it. If I had stopped and considered my feelings, I would have found that my environment swayed my emotions into a state of submission. Yet because my science concerned itself only with facts and observations, I remained in my appetitive state, my hunger for the freedom that remained in my soul fed solely with each minute in my lab. 

The bookshelves in my house are grouped by the subject they covered. Among the volumes on electricity (organized under the “science” section), I found a book of another language. It was a dictionary, the words in it I knew had been translated into words my ancestors knew. I could not initially see the connection between my science of electricity, and another language, yet I now see the connection, which may best be described by a word I have already used in this journal.

Many words of the Latin language are similar to the words I speak, almost as if my words are distant cousins to Latin. 

 One of the words was, in fact, ego. 

Ego was a sin. It was the greatest sin in the land, save murder. Committing ego meant that in the midst of your brothers and the sea of “us,” you saw “me.” Committing ego meant thinking you were not equal to your brothers, and acting in a way that attempted to prove it. If I had not run away with my light, I would have been convicted of committing the crime of ego. 

Yet the word ego in Latin simply means “I.” 

The statement “ego sum liber” does not have anything to do with my brothers. It simply means “I am free.”

Another book I came upon in my new home was one called For the New Intellectual. As I was reading one passage that especially caught my attention: “The Soul of an Individualist.” I regard this as my soul, almost as if it was written for me. “His vision, his strength, his courage came from his own spirit… To think, to feel, to judge, to act are functions of the ego.” Only I can think, feel, judge, and act for myself. My ability to do so does not rely on other people.

I am “a first cause, a fount of all energy, a Prime Mover,” as the commentary on my soul entails.

From this realization, I had learned that I, as an individual—as we are called in the passage—creates without fear or emotion. One who simply does. I am free to do as I please, and know the potential of my decisions and life.

After months of living in freedom, I believe it is useful to reflect on my journey here, and write about all I have learned and all that I know. 

In the beginning, I believed, as I stated myself, that the electricity I discovered in my experimentation with the copper wire and the frog was a “power unknown to men.” 

I was wrong. 

If the men that came before me had not come to know electricity, it would not be. My discovery hinged on its corroboration with the inventions of an earlier man that I had found in the tunnel I toiled in. It was not a power “unknown” to men, but a power forgotten by them. It had been known very well in the “unmentionable times,” and it has become known again today. 

When I saw the frog twitch, not only had I rediscovered “the power of the sky,” but I had reminded nature of its existence. It was indeed a “miracle,” but it was not a “new miracle.” It was a miracle that reintroduced life as it had been, and the way life is again. 

From that discovery, I learned that electricity was not an end, but a means. Not only could it make the leg of a dead frog jerk, but it could be applied to other outlets as a means to reach future advancements. All light is energy, but not all energy is light. As I worked to make my luminous box (the end to my rediscovered means), it occurred to me, albeit subconsciously, that the same theory applied to my individualism. It is a blessing to be a free individual, but it is only a means.  All independent thought is freedom, but not all freedom is independent thought. 

It is worth celebrating individualism, and my escape from the tyranny of the brotherhood, but if I had run no farther into the forest, it would have been done in vain. There was more for me to do, so I continued.

My work is still incomplete. I toil away night and day to create a world for myself, and keep my family free from the tyranny of the brotherhood. 

At times, I am tired, but I still work because it is my “own spirit.”

I still work because I now know, ego sum liber.