Washing Away The Dust Of Life

It is almost impossible to stare up at the stars and not feel something. As cosmologist Neil de Grasse Tyson has explained, the cosmos fills us with complicated emotions. On the one hand, we feel an infinitesimal smallness in comparison to the vast universe; on the other, an extreme connectedness to this larger whole.

Obviously, given that we’re in our bodies every day, it’s tempting to think that’s the most important thing in the world. But we counteract that bias by looking at nature at things much bigger than us. A line from Seneca, which has since become a proverb, expresses Marcus’s insight well: Mundus ipse est ingens deorum omnium templum (The world itself is a huge temple of all the gods).

Looking at the beautiful expanse of the sky is an antidote to the nagging pettiness of earthly concerns. And it is good and sobering to lose yourself in.