For those of us without a faith, the sentence feels, in some small way, devotional. It pays homage, not by thanking God for the world’s existence but by thanking the world itself for existing. The thanking happens not by worshipping but by noticing. We are the only animals who are truly paying attention. No other living thing seems to be curious about things that they cannot mate with, play with, scrounge off or eat. We humans are the noticers. If our lives have any point, which I doubt, it might be this: to notice the world with our own eyes and to wrap that noticing in words. For this we
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