Some years ago Harry Elmer Barnes wrote, “Astronomically speaking, man is almost totally negligible.” In response George Albert Coe whipped back an answer. “Astronomically speaking, man is,–the astronomer!” Checkmate.

James Agate probably speaks for the bulk of us when he says, “Without man…there can be no beauty, and the Milky Way becomes less than a tenantless back-yard. For myself, I place the Himalayas beneath the feet of the little [janitor] who sweeps my room, and rate the Pacific Ocean less than my butcher boy with the untidy nose.”

All the “stuff” in creation means nothing if there’s no one to share it with. As the song Islands in the Stream would have it, “everything is nothing when you’ve got no one.” Plato discussed living forever only in the context of Socrates’ death. Who would want to live forever without there being people to love and be loved by?

In the end, it’s people that matter and it’s people that give “stuff” their value. So while people have the capacity to irritate each other (and more) they contribute to the “worthwhileness” of living. And even the grubbiest of street urchins is more wondrous than the blazing sun.