“We’re like meridians, all beginning and ending in the same place. We spread out from the beginning and go our separate ways,…

“We’re like meridians, all beginning and ending in the same place. We spread out from the beginning and go our separate ways, over seas and mountains and islands and deserts, each telling our own story, as different as they could possibly be. But in the end we all converge and our ends are as much the same as our beginnings.”

– - Neal Stephenson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reamde)