In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.

Consider this.

For each of us, one thing is true: Had any one variable been ever so subtly different — had your parents mated on a different day or at a different altitude, had the early universe cooled a fraction of a second faster after the Big Bang, you would not exist as the particular constellation of atoms configuring the particular... See more

It is a heavy gift to hold, this doomed delirium of aliveness.