Two forlorn leaves cling to the highest branch of a great oak tree as winter approaches. Almost all the others have fallen, and the second leaf wonders if “we know anything about ourselves when we are down there” (Salten 105). Both know that their time on the branch is shortening. The former comforts his friend with the memory of warm summer breezes and the promise that many leaves will come after him, and then more. The first leaf is now upset and kindly tells her friend not to say anything else for a while. After several hours of silence, a cold wind blows and the second leaf is torn from the branch, just as it began to speak, leaving the first alone in the cold and dark, with no one to comfort or console it (Salten 105 -110). This short chapter from Salten's Bambi novel foreshadows the many deaths to come and amplifies their meaning, while Disney's animators realized they couldn't convey the disturbing sub-story effectively and wisely approached the broad strokes of the story. overall plot, which can be successfully delivered through both mediums. It's not enough to tell a coherent story full of nuanced truths. The story must travel through an effective medium, otherwise no one will care, and if no one cares, no one will understand. The best mediums provide truth structures with maximum visceral impact, so that we not only grasp the revealed truth but internalize it completely. Subject to every whim of wind and weather, the fragile leaves face their first and last fall after just one summer. Faceless, completely inanimate and incapable of any kind of outward action but clearly alive, the leaves themselves are a medium that embodies helplessness, loneliness and individual insignificance. It's also why their magic works on a sheet of paper, launched this October, but research in general and neuroscience in particular remains underfunded. Ed Catmull completed his graduate work in the twilight of major research projects in the United States. Since the mid-1970s our scientists have to spend much of their time worrying about their next grant and have little creative license, as projects tend to be short-term, highly specific, and don't actually provide the scientist Very human to live with. The ARPA projects that began in 1958 are not only why we have Pixar, they also created both the first modern computer and ARPAnet, the grandfather of the Internet. We still have ARPA, now known as DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), but we are no longer creating a safe place for fragile creativity to take shape. If we invested in bringing intelligent people together again, they could create nothing less than a more interesting mind.