How Humans Navigate
One afternoon, walking around my backyard, I wondered how humans navigate a life. The answer didn’t arrive as a theory. It arrived as a function: humans navigate by story.
I’ve always been curious.
I studied psychology for a time, and although my schooling didn’t continue because of my disability, my reading never really stopped. Philosophy, science, consciousness — I kept circling the question, never quite landing.
I was especially interested in how little we can actually know about reality. How perception is constructed. How determinism, fitness, and constraint shape what we experience. None of it felt wrong. None of it felt complete.
I was also fascinated by physics and the cosmos — waves and particles, vibration and matter — and how strange it is that, as a human, I am both a body and a source of sound. Even when I’m not speaking or humming, my body is still vibrating. My brain just learns to ignore it.
One afternoon, I was walking around my backyard doing a tongue trill to a song.
I started thinking about how cells navigate through the body.
And then I wondered how humans navigate through a life.
The answer didn’t arrive as a theory.
It arrived as a function.
Humans navigate by story.
It took months to understand why that didn’t undo everything I’d been reading — but instead seemed to make sense of it.
I didn’t arrive at certainty.
I arrived at something that wouldn’t let go.