We have already beaten the biggest odds that we’re ever going to face

“According to an article in The New Yorker, in the typical human sex act, the act that brought each of us to this planet, there are between 60 million and 900 million individual sperm involved. So each of us on a cellular level, I think, has a memory, a clear sense that we have already beaten the biggest odds that we’re ever going to face, before we even got here. This life is like the bonus round. This is the prize — we’re here. We should enjoy this baby! Why would we talk ourselves out of being idealistic and settle for something practical and pragmatic?”
–Brad Newsham, in Michael Shapiro’s A Sense of Place (2004)