For Small Creatures Such as We

Every day, the number of books I have not read gnaws at me.

No matter what happens next, you were here. And even when any record of our individual lives is lost to the ages, that won’t detract from the fact that we were. We lived. We were part of the enormity. All the great and terrible parts of being alive, the shocking sublime beauty and heartbreak, the monotony, the interior thoughts, the shared pain and pleasure. It really happened. All of it. On this little world that orbits a yellow star out in the great vastness. And that alone is cause for celebration.

I hope we can still feel wonder. In those revelations and the ways the randomness, the chance, the chaos sometimes, somehow works out. Still magical. Still beautiful.

Memento mori is Latin. It means “Remember you have to die.”

My parents taught me that even though it’s not forever—because it’s not forever—being alive is a profoundly beautiful thing for which each of us should feel deeply grateful. If we lived forever it would not be so amazing. It doesn’t mean loss isn’t scary, it doesn’t mean it’s not hard. But for me, it has helped.

Even more so because science has brought us a deeper understanding of the mystery and beauty of nature than our ancestors could have ever dreamed.

Maybe at the stroke of midnight on the longest night of the year, we imagined, we’d slip into their room, gently wake them up by whispering into their little ears, We have something wonderful, something epic and thrilling to tell you, something so large and magnificent that no human being can stop it: starting tomorrow the days will start getting longer again, and slowly the plants will bloom again, the sunshine will return. Summer is coming.

And no matter what comes next, we need a tribe to face it with us.

What a simple, elegant gesture a clap is to show gratitude. We use it so freely to show appreciation for a speech or a performance; why not just one for a meal?

The Vietnamese Zen Master and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh offers this:

In this plate of food,

I see clearly

the presence of the entire universe

supporting my existence.