The View from Above

Marcus Aurelius — Meditations

Remember how brief life is, how vast the universe. What we do now echoes in eternity. Constantly regard the universe as one living being, having one substance and one soul. All things are mutually woven together and the bond is sacred; there is hardly anything unconnected with any other thing. For we were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural.

A recurring technique in the Meditations is what later commentators call the "view from above" — mentally stepping back to see one's life against the scale of the whole universe. Marcus Aurelius uses that scale here to argue for cooperation: since all things are woven into one interconnected whole, working against one another is unnatural, not just unkind.