stuff

Once it is grasped: the absolute volume of stuff, the offset between the absolute inhuman multitudes of stuff, and the absolute fact that all of it is only ever accessible through our human senses. In this contrast there are two angles of approach:

One of to marvel at how our human senses end with the perception of the inhuman universe, and indeed at the inhuman physical constants that constitute, constrain, and make possible our selves. The only residence of “human” is because we think it so. We are human only because we think it so. We are epiphenomena of the laws of nature, laws which may make humans possible, but certainly have no human intent of their own. We give ourselves humanity because we may.

Another option is to instead extend the human senses into the universe and humanize. That is, to ask the very fact that for us everything can only begin and end with the human is to then recognize that it is our perceptions that make it so. This can be framed as an act of creation, too. The very envisioning of the universe, necessarily, is of human provenance, and so the human real extends into the remote reaches of all that we imagine, perceive, or discover.