The human mind is only capable of absorbing a few things at a time. We see what is taking place in front of us in the here and now, and cannot envisage simultaneously a succession of processes, no matter how integrated and complementary. Our faculties of perception are consequently limited even as regards fairly simple phenomena. The fate of a single man can be rich with significance, that of a few hundred less so, but the history of thousands and millions of men does not mean anything at all... (Stanisław Lem, Solaris, trans. J. Kilmartin and S. Cox, A Harvest Book, Harcourt Inc. 1987) 

Żaneta Rydzewska