8 September

There are 15 people dead for every person alive today. It seems like those nearly 100 billion humans who once lived are gone. But much of what they did in their lives never left us, they shaped our languages, institutions, they built the cities we live in, they invented most of the things we use. Our flesh and blood came from them, they gave birth to us. I remember thinking about this visiting huge cathedrals in Europe that took generations to build. We’re such an individualistic age, seeing everything through the lens of individuals, including life and death. The idea of being an unbroken tradition of life is hard for us.