Technically, you are not an artifact. And, you are.

Artifacts are inanimate objects made or modified by human hands, studied by archaeologists to understand cultures that came before. Tools, pottery, mummies. Not people. Not yet breathing.

But here’s where it gets interesting.

On Philosophy Stack Exchange, someone once asked: Can a human being be considered an artifact?

The answers that came back weren’t dismissive. Trained philosophical minds argued seriously that humans who deliberately shape their appearance, their character, their beliefs are effectively producing a designed version of themselves. A self-made artifact. A walking piece of material culture.

That’s Vintageing—the daily practice of becoming more precisely, more deliberately, more fully yourself. Not declining — ripening. Each day, month, year, decade doesn’t diminish you. It authenticates you.

And what do you accumulate? That’s your Vintageness and value. Earned depth. Irreplaceable character. The thing no one younger can replicate because they haven’t lived it yet.

Bioarchaeology is the science of reading human remains — bones, teeth, tissue — for the full story of a life: what you ate, where you traveled, what you survived. Your bones carry those mineral records right now. Your cells hold epigenetic signatures of stress, geography, love, and survival. Your face maps every laugh, every loss, every decision that cost you something. A Sager knows this—and wears it without apology.

Religious traditions understood something about this long before philosophy caught up. First-class relics were preserved and venerated not despite their age but because of it. The marks of a life fully lived were the credentials. To bear them was to have been somewhere, endured something, become someone.

What makes Vintageness valuable isn’t just time. It’s everything that happened in the time — 13.8 billion years of the universe, every ancestor who survived, every migration, every civilization that rose and fell, every choice that shaped you, every loss that didn’t break you. All of it converging into one singular, unrepeatable person that no one else on earth could have become. You.

What kind of artifact is that?

The Vintage Way has an answer: the rarest kind ever made.

The Louvre has objects behind glass, and then there is your story.

Thanks – Michael (he, him)

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