CATS. CATS ARE NICE.
(capitalisation intentional)
Ummm, errr, not to be fastidious but, you do realize these two are actually totally relative to our perception, don’t you?
I should say Java sparrows. Just got a pair for my kids and am enjoying them more than them. They contain all of these mysteries in their tiny bodies.
And if I have to be grand, the quantum of life: why, how, when, how many, what for… (and don’t give me D-O-G, I won’t eat it!)
Now that’s a generous one.
I’m in for sharing!
In a similar vein, I sometimes find it amazing to think about the fact that everything we’ve ever made, we’ve made out of stuff we just found lying around on/in the ground. Tables, moonrockets, clocks, shirts, cell phones, guitars, supercomputers. We dug up soil and figured out how to separate it, refine it, purify it, and process it into plastic, fuel, metal, batteries, glass, paint, and myriad other things that make our lives more comfortable or make us more capable.
The amount of people that are responsible for your daily life is literally millions–from the crew that designed, put together, delivered and sold your bed, alarm clock, toothbrush, toothpaste, house, everything you use every day.
Boggles my mind it does.
I am awed that I can put a stamp that costs less than fifty cents on an envelope today, hand it to the mailman and my friend in California will have it in her hand by Saturday afternoon.
Oh and sun showers are pretty cool too.
You might be interested in Bill Whittle’s comparison between one of the great pyramids of ancient Egypt and a modern 7-11, excerpted here. If you’ve never been awed by a 7-11, this might do it.
I remember how, when it was all still new, I used to be fascinated by changing my daughter’s dirty diapers. 
It was just so cool! This little body that I had grown in my tummy actually worked! Put food in one end, it comes out the other, bada bing, bada boom. Awesome! And look…she’s breathing! And she can see me, and hear me, and feel me. I actually helped *build *this amazingly complex, beautiful machine.
My kids are 3 and 18 mos now, and believe you me I am WAY over the dirty diapers. But now I’m fascinated by the process of language acquisition.
There is so much in this world that is just mind-boggling. Thanks for this thread!
Singing.
At various times when my church choir is singing, I get these tingly, goose-bumpy twangs running all up and down my nervous system. It’s at times like those that I imagine that’s what people are talking about when they speak of feeling the Holy Spirit.
Edit: Yeah, and kids too. Watching my children when they were young gave me that same sort of feeling.
The Silmarillion
St. Agar’s Blue Cheese
Cameron Diaz
Bach.
I suppose music. Most of the things about us have roots in our evolution. For example, most things that are good to eat, taste good, (the folks who really liked the bitter poison berries, well, they all died off). Our enjoyment of anything involving hand-eye coordination, is built in from having to early on, chuck a rock at dinner.
Music… is different. I can think of no reason why music can or should be able to make us happy, sad, relax us, get us ready to fight, or even be enjoyed. We could survive and prosper just fine without music, but what a wonderful, extra little bonus it is.
the pale blue dot photos here and Earth in the context of space.
The breadth of human knowledge.
The realization that in just a few thousand years (a eyeblink in the our planet’s lifespan), we have learned so much about the Earth, biology, mathematics, and literally millions of subtopics. That just in the last 110 years, we went from having no airplanes, few cars, only the most rudimentary understanding of the human body, and certainly no electronics or space travel, yet have come such a long way in so little time. And that we still have so much to learn, but at the rate we have been advancing, it will be amazing what could take place in the next 110 years!
Rafting for a week in the Grand Canyon made for quite a bit of awe. The sheer physical beauty of the place, along with the guide’s explanations of the geologic history, are mind-boggling. I, along with several others in my party, had dreams about it for several days (weeks, in some cases) afterward. If you think looking down on it is amazing, you have to try looking up from the bottom. Just incredible.
Has anyone mentioned air conditioning? Because it, too, needs a shout-out.
+1
I couldn’t imagine this very moment without it.
Australian Sheep
The vastness of the sky. I can see a little slice of sky from my window by the computer, but when I’m out on the road, away from cities and towns, just the fact that there’s this… Huge canopy of air, stretching out forever… It often makes me just pause and smile.
The human touch, and I mean physically. I’m not one who allows myself to be touched by other people frequently. The occasional handshake, and a hug if I -really- trust someone. But a hand on the shoulder? Especially if I need reassurance or compassion? Shivers. Every damn time.
I think it has it’s roots in rhythm, which controls many aspects of our body, and language, where tone and inflection are linked to emotional responses. I also think it’s related to consciousness, an extended instant. Likewise, an instant of music is nothing, it is just a sound. A note only has meaning in the context that surrounds it.
I seem to end up posting that o0ne every six months for one reason or another, it’s a favorite of mine. 