Last weekend I hiked up and camped at Garibaldi Lake. At night, we went out by the lake and were greeted by a sky full of stars. The view was striking and the silence was powerful. And the totality of what I was experiencing got me thinking.

Like a person, each star has a story to tell. It probably had unique parents (every nebula looks different after all), a different time to maturity (our sun took 50 million years - what a baby), and a different luminosity, size, orbit, satellites (siblings?) and gravitational pull. It may also be scarred left right and centre by meteor strikes unique to itself. Just like a person.

Taken as a whole, the universe is beautiful. Sure, it has its black holes and scary warped time-space stuff, but when we look up at the night sky, we see beauty. Pure immense beauty.

We should see the same when we look at humanity.

No one person represents all of humanity, and no one star shines that much brighter than the others. It’s the totality of all the stars that make us who we are.

When I think about all that I strive to be in my life, how can I be so myopic to leave out the billions of others who make up the rest of the picture? Without the others, I’m no work of art - I’m just a dot in the sky.

Last weekend, the night sky reminded me that I’m living in a masterpiece - intricate, imperfect, and inspiring.