Let's call him Billy.

Not quite Budd. 

Just Billy.

Billy went through some rough times. He had a going concern there, for awhile. But like all good things, it came to an end. So, Billy had some rough times.

For awhile, he didn't bathe. He indulged in ignorance. He fought with his neighbors. Sometimes winning, sometimes losing. Overtime, Billy turned inside, started navel gazing.

But always remembering that going concern he had, once. 

Eventually, Billy found some notebooks he had kept. Lather bound things, these notebooks. With strange script, forgotten ideas. And so Billy started studying them, reading them, remembering them.

And then Billy started using these ideas he had found. Improving on the best, discarding the rest. Billy learned. The more he used the ideas, the more his new concern grew. Billy's found things, Billy's found ideas, rediscovered things, gave him a leg up on his neighbors. 

And so, overtime, Billy came came to believe that these ideas were, in fact, hisself. Unique, not repeatable. Like a beach comber discovering driftwood, or the Chinese with their fireworks. Billy found it first.

Billy was it.

And so a change worked itself on Billy.  Worked itself on Billy's personality. He became, in time, Billy over all.

But here's the thing. These ideas, this driftwood, found first by Billy? They are a virus. And Billy merely the vector. And so as Billy rose, and his concern grew, the virus spread.

As intended.

The fortunes of Billy's concern rose and fell in time. And rose again. And fell. 

Yet the virus spread.

As intended.

See, these ideas Billy found, they weren't dependent on Billy. They were repeatable. Any concern which used them could succeed. Any concern which abused them, failed.

Water only boils in one direction.

So here's Billy. An older man, somewhat wiser. Sometimes foolish. Time has identified Billy with these ideas. With this virus. To associate yourself with that virus is to associate yourself with Billy and his concerns. And their mistakes.

But also their accomplishments.

And so Billy learns, separating himself from the virus, examining it, in order to embrace it anew.

As others have. Those others, who have raced ahead to "bank Tyrol's fire," before it dims again.

As intended.