missed connections

If a team of extraterrestrials were to swoop down to earth to study humanity, they would deduce -- correctly, I think -- that we are dream-struck when young and dream-struck, too, in later life, only chastened by failures and a growing remorse about missed connections.
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987
There is something about upstart dreams colliding with implacable circumstances that is deeply, if not uniquely, ours.