Why do we have this silly prejudice that the size of something dictates its value? Is the human less significant than the hippopotamus? Is the diamond less significant than the boulder? Is the womb less significant than the barren planet? Why do we take the matter of size to be a humbling point of comparison between the Earth and the Universe? Why do people say we are just floating through space on this tiny blue rock as if that is cause for apathy or self-deprecation? What does our home’s size have anything to do with its value?

In any important competition you will always feel that the cosmically just outcome is your own victory. No protagonist will ever be quite so easy to root for as yourself. Unsavory as it is, it’s not a bias we would want to live without. The belief that what is good…

Humans fear darkness because within it lurks the unknown. The future closely resembles darkness. We are always rolling blindly forward into it without knowing what could become of us further down the trail. Setting a full schedule shines a small, but bright light on what’s immediately in front of you like a flashlight to guide you in the night. While goals are important, they are quite dim in comparison, diffused weakly across the years ahead. A full schedule instead offers a vision of tomorrow lit up in perfect clarity — just enough to walk warily into the darkness.

Do not frantically try to organize the events of your past like puzzle pieces that would make sense if they were all arranged in a certain way. The things that have happened to you and the things that you have done are not scenes in a clean moral narrative. Your…

I used to think that pigeons were the most foolish of birds. I looked down on them for squandering their awesome power of flight. I could not understand why they would create homes in the dingiest dirtiest metropolitan corners of the world stacked on top of each other in squalor and constant competition for fodder, when all the while they could flock to the mountains or the forests or the prairies like the wiser birds of their class.

It’s not until about 30 that you begin to internalize that your life is finite. In late adolescence you are under the impression that youth is an immutable characteristic of your identity. To be fair, it’s all you’ve ever known up to this stage. …

What do we dream of principally? Other people. Whether these dreams are populated by friends, family members, acquaintances, public figures, fictional characters, archetypes, or personalities of our own imaginations, dreams are almost always a story of who did what, where and with whom. Every layer of an individual’s sense of…

Imagine you are given a free ticket to a cosmic amusement ride through the Universe. From within a little tin vessel, every conceivable wonder and sidereal delight will be on offer to your gaze. …