Superorganism. A biologist coined that word for our great African ant colonies, claiming that consciousness and intelligence resided not in the individual ant but in the collective ant mind. The trail of red taillights stretching to the horizon as day broke around us made me think of that term. Order and purpose must reside somewhere other than within each vehicle. That morning I heard the hum, the respiration of the superorganism. It's a sound the new immigrant hears but not for long. By the time I learned to say "6-inch Number 7 on rye with Swiss hold the lettuce, " the sound, too, was gone. It became part of the what the mind would label silence. You were subsumed into the superorganism. Abraham Verghese
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More Quotes By Abraham Verghese
  1. You live it forward, but understand it backward.

  2. The key to your happiness is to own your slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don't. If you keep saying your slippers aren't yours, then you'll die searching, you'll...

  3. Yesterday misspent can't be recall'd Vanity makes beauty contemptible Wisdom is more valuable than riches.

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