Once upon a time there was a beautiful witch. She had two suitors. One was a young dark-haired shepherd whom she dearly loved. The other was a rich prince, vain and cruel. He always got what he wanted, and what he wanted most of all was the witch for his bride. So he kidnapped her.

Her beloved shepherd came to her rescue, but the prince caught him red-handed. The prince laughed and ripped out the shepherd’s heart. In desperation the witch changed the shepherd’s still-beating heart into a rosebud, and transformed the shepherd himself into a black crow so that she might save him.

Enraged, the prince tried to kill the bird, but it flew away. He locked the witch in a golden cage, and sent his most trustworthy servants to hide the rose in the most obscure corner of the world where it could never be found again.

In time the prince became king, and the witch his wife. She bore him a son, whom she named Sebastian. Sebastian grew into a handsome young man, astute in the arts of war. He commanded great loyalty among his soldiers, and conquered many new lands.

One day while walking through a foreign street, he spied a jewel upon the road. Upon closer inspection he saw it was not a jewel at all, but a rosebud. And though the day was cloudy, it shone as if the light of a spring sun were still upon it. He carried the rosebud with him and placed it in an ivory box in which he kept his most precious gems.

The next morning there was a crow sitting at Sebastian’s window. No matter how he tried to scare it off, it would not fly away. But this did not bother him greatly, for he was soon leaving to conquer another city.

However, the next morning, in a palace whose owner was no longer king, the crow was again sitting at the window of Sebastian’s room. And from there, no matter where he went or what he did, the crow was always to be found nearby when he awoke.

At last the young man gave in. He offered the crow a bowl water, and the bird drank from it thirstily. The next day he offered it some soldier’s gruel, and again the crow was thankful. On the third day he offered it some of his own fine bread, and the crow was so grateful that it flew straight onto Sebastian’s shoulder.

From that moment on, the crow was never to be found far from Sebastian. Even marching into the heart of battle, the crow stood fierce. His men believed that it gave them good luck, and they were more triumphant than ever before. When it seemed that they had conquered the entire world, they returned to the king’s palace, their caravans full of riches.

But when the king saw his son with the crow upon his shoulder, he flew into a rage and forbid the bird from entering the gate. And so Sebastian set his companion free, and in farewell he told it to follow its heart.

That night, saddened by his loss, Sebastian opened his ivory box to console himself with beauty. Inside the rosebud still bloomed with sunlight, more beautiful than any jewel. Yet in the blink of an eye it was gone, for the crow had swooped in through the window and grabbed it in its beak.

Sebastian ran after the bird, asking it to stop. He followed it through the many rooms of the palace, some he had never seem before, and up to the highest tower. There, in a golden cage, sat a woman in fine dress. Sebastian had never seen his mother before, and only stood in the doorway.

The crow flew to the woman and gave her the rosebud. On her right hand perched the bird, and in her left she held the rose. Presently it bloomed, and transformed into a beating human heart. The crow also melted away, and in her arms she held her beloved dark-haired shepherd.

The man gave to her his last breath in a kiss. She lingered there for a moment and then, with a sad smile upon her lips, the witch lay her head upon his breast and died.

The king burst suddenly into the room. He cried out against his dead rival for stealing his most precious possession, and railed against the cage. Sebastian realized then how vain and cruel his father was. He locked the door and left the king to rot in the company of the lovers he had wronged.

Sebastian became king with much celebration. He ruled his many kingdoms with grace and kindness. After many years had passed, he sent his best servants up to the tower to collect the bones of the witch and her beloved shepherd and bury them.

A rose bush grew from their grave, and it grows there yet. Its blossoms are more beautiful than any jewel, and to some they are more precious. For even on a cold grey day, they glow as if the sun shone upon them still.

I’m sitting here reading The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, and I realize that he invented the word “meme”. Right there, at the beginning of chapter 11 (the last chapter in the original edition) — he even tells you how to pronounce it. Memes are not actually those quizzes one finds on blogs nowadays, but rather ideas and fashions that have a habit of catching on.

The gene-centric way of looking at evolution is the primary point Dawkins drives home in his book, an idea I like a lot but was already partly familiar with. For me the coolest part about The Selfish Gene is the existence of replicators of all sorts: “I want to claim almost limitless power for slightly inaccurate self-replicating entities, once they arise anywhere in the universe. This is because they tend to become the basis for Darwinian selection which, given enough generations, cumulatively builds systems of great complexity” (p. 322, 30th Anniversary Edition).

Instead of arguing over vague definitions of ‘life’, it would seem more fruitful to seek out the conditions and environments — digital, cultural, mental, physical — in which replicators and their accompanying complexity are likely to arise. Whether viruses or Avida simulations are ‘alive’ or not is a moot point in this respect, because it’s the selective pressures on the DNA and the computer code that are creating all the emergent behaviors we find so fascinating.

But back to memes for a second. I have a problem with high school seniors everywhere who put that oft-repeated bit of wisdom in their yearbooks, “No matter where you go, there you are”. It’s a good quote, teleological and (therefore) full of profundity. It’s a classic. It’s a meme. But do any of these graduating students know where it comes from? Of course not. It’s from the 80’s sci-fi movie, The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension, not a traditional source for yearbooks. Yet there are plenty of other good Buckaroo Bonzai quotes to choose from for original-minded senior: “Laugh-a while you can, monkey-boy!” and “Where are we going?” “Planet Ten!” “When?” “Real soon!” (The book is good too, but has fewer shots of Perfect Tommy.)