Humans are the mistaken soup of chemicals that grew up to make God, laughter, and culture. We create jewelry and mosques from echoes of a primordial sludge. We are artists and artisans, engineers and empresses. But nothing preordained the beauty in which we’ve covered the world. The Hagia Sophia wasn’t meant to happen. The Duomo di Milano wasn’t meant to happen. The Cathedral of Barcelona wasn’t meant to happen. There could have been rock, sun, and wind–but no hand to skip the stone, no face to feel the light, no chest to brave the cold. In emptiness, there is no one to write a book or say a prayer.

If molecules at the beginning of time never locked into a single magical formation, the world would never know the concept of a cathedral. We live in an abundance so consistent, we see it as mundane. The world didn’t have to unfold like this. We get to witness the world–no small gift from an earth once barren and empty. In the eyes of an experiment, every second is borrowed time.

If the gift of life is experience, we repay the debt in attention. Oxygen’s bird is the realization of the world’s detail. What was once only air is now a living, breathing experience that grows with presence. When Buddhist monks shout “Observe!” they’re asking you to give this moment the attention it deserves. With focus comes a flood of detail you can’t help but comprehend. This is how our world is plucked, polished, and presented anew. This is how we see the bird through the oxygen.

Let the moment rest like a bird in your hands. Examine the outline of slender bones. Notice the color of its feathers. Study the texture of the soft down. Holding a bird, there is no tomorrow or yesterday. You only want to protect its fragility. Presence is as delicate an experience. When the bird flies away, you return to autopilot. Bird becomes oxygen. But when we treat every moment as oxygen’s bird, we bring ourselves into vivid detail.