Awe

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'To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man's life.' - TS Eliot

I probably came across this quote more than a year ago but I never really understood what it meant. It was some other ‘trite’ quote about what it means to live a fulfilled life of virtue and integrity. And I swept aside the idea of ‘contemplating the beautiful thing’ as if it were just ‘oh yeah, this thing is beautiful or whatever.’

This past week, over Harvard’s Spring Break, I was lucky enough to travel to Greece with a group of students and alumni, accompanied by Greg Nagy of the Classics department. We travelled to Nafplio, Olympia, Delphi, and Athens during our time there, and I thought it was absolutely incredible.

Something that struck me with awe this trip was being able to see, with my very own eyes, all the ancient Greek architecture and the artifacts held in all the museums we went to. Literally, structures and buildings that have survived for more than three thousand years. Alongside great works of literature such as the works of Homer and Virgil, they tell the stories of human civilisations from thousands and thousands of years ago - still to be preserved and cherished to this day. Words are undying - like Virgil’s great ‘forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit’ (perhaps, some day even this will be pleasing to remember) has comforted people, literally for millennia. How incredible is that to think about? Seeing these ancient buildings calls back into mind the idea of kleos (glory) in Epic, especially Homer’s Iliad, where heroes such as Achilles constantly wrestle with idea of continuing their legacies after death, being remembered and being cherished as a person with kleos. Even two to three thousand years after your death - you’re remembered by the people of modern society. That must be awe-inspiring.

I also think that humans really struggle at contemplating the infinite, or at least what it means for something to be infinite. Even our universe is not guaranteed to be an infinite universe - it will either keep expanding and die out (conservation of energy) or it will reach a finite-ness and then collapse on itself. Even in mathematics, when we think of infinite terms and infinite series. Like, there is a Googolplex^Googolplex-th number in the digits of pi. Or, perhaps, when we think of (1/2)^n, that it will never truly reach zero. This is largely because infinity is an abstract concept that we find insanely hard to conceive of.

One of my favourite things to do while travelling is to climb hills. Usually to chase a beautiful sunset. But also, without fail, each time I reach the top of a hill after a long climb, I find myself absolutely awestruck at the scale of human civilisation. Building a house is no easy feat, yet when we unite, we can build whole ass cities, and thousands of them across Earth. Only when you’re at the top of a city like Athens, or if you’re in a skyscraper in Tokyo, can you really even start to imagine how cool it is to be a part of the human race.

When we stare up at a dark night sky in the middle of nowhere and see a kaleidoscope of stars, we realise how much is still out there that we haven’t even begun to explore, much less understand. The sheer scale of the universe is so frightening - we can’t even begin to imagine the distance of a single light year - and the whole universe is 93 billion light years in diameter. Like, holy shit. We really are a tiny ass micro-grain of sand in the cosmos. Despite this, I always tend to feel awe when I admire a mountain range with its jagged ridges, caps and all. Perhaps I’m thinking how I could tackle its ascent. Or when I’m looking out at the at the vast sea, waves crashing in the distance, containing a great unknown. Every huge thing has such detail at its micro scale. The ridges of a mountain range have such evocative patterns, and the ways that a wave crashes and forms shapes is so peculiar.

I guess what all these examples have this all has in common is the idea of scale. When we look out at all these things, we realise how small and insignificant we really are. And paradoxically, in that moment, we’re the most important thing in the world, but at the same time, we’re also the least important.

On a side note, Vienna might be the most beautiful city in the world. The Baroque architecture is just absolutely beautiful. Delicious food (and great beer!), a beautiful arts and culture scene, clean streets, reliable public transport (not even ticket gates!), accompanied by kind and welcoming people. I might have to move here some day.

I was very lucky to have had the privilege to travel while I’m still young. Interestingly, I think that being around kind people in Europe (both on my Harvard trip and the people of Europe) has made me a more kind person while I was in the region. And I’ve noticed that I’ve done kinder things now.

The trip was an incredible week and definitely one of the most amazing ways to have spent Spring Break. Europe always just reminds me of the beauty of life. And it always puts me in awe. Things that happen to have survived for thousands of years - be it literature, the mountains, the stars, the water, the artifacts, the buildings. It just reminds you how small you are, and how incredible awe can feel.

Perhaps that’s what it means to contemplate the beautiful thing. Or, to contemplate the sublime.

Perhaps it consists in that which transcends the material and mundane.

Yurui