I remember sitting at a picnic table on the outdoor patio of my office building about 20 years ago. This was heyday of the first dot com years, when breathing was the only qualification you needed to get a job with a startup company. I had landed a position at CNET, already a demonstrated leader in the technology review market. Our departments were spread among several buildings along the odd numbered piers of San Francisco’s northeast waterfront. From the second floor patio, I could catch glimpses of the bay, but today I was focused on the brick that made up the low wall at the edge of the patio.

I was admiring the clean grout line separating what appeared to be perfectly parallel rows of bricks. I wondered about the bricklayer and what was going through his mind that day as he stacked those bricks. Would he wonder about who’d later be sitting at the patio? What he would be doing that weekend with his family?

I often like to envision people I see doing everyday jobs as they might have been just a few hours earlier. Asleep in their bed, getting up and having coffee, brushing their teeth in front of the bathroom mirror. It’s a fun way to give humanity to someone who, in their occupation, might be a completely different person than they are when they are at their most vulnerable.

That day, however, I followed a different path, the path of the brick. I wondered how it arrived there. So many different opportunities presented themselves: the life of the delivery truck driver, the life or the person at the brick foundry, the life of the person at the quarry who dug up the raw materials. Staying with the brick, however, I began to think about the elements that make up a brick: clay, shale, sand, lime.

As I imagined the origins of each of these materials, I found myself in prehistoric times with dinosaurs walking the earth. I imagined a brontosaurus heading home to feed its young but falling prey instead to a Tyrannosaurus. The family of the bronto wouldn’t know why their mother never returned, instead being torn to pieces with nothing but bones left to tell the story, a story that would later turn those bones to dust that would become part of the material that was used to make the brick in front of me some 66 million years later.

I do this often: look back at the origin of something I use or interact with in my life. It helps me to appreciate more all the that goes into providing me with the products I use. Think of how much more you’d value things if you considered the history that went into bringing them to you. I’ve always wanted to write a book about the origins of things that we use in our daily lives, but for now, I will have to hope that I’ve at least inspired you to look deeper into the things in front of you.