QUOTE : Later in life I came across a stunning passage from The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, which spoke directly to me across time from first-century Rome: I am part of the whole, all of which is governed by nature…. I am intimately related to all the parts, which are of the same kind as myself. If I remember these two things, I cannot be discontented with anything that arises out of the whole, because I am connected to the whole. A Roman emperor would seem to have little in common with a kid in a sleepy southern town. Somehow, though, the same awareness showed up in both of us. Why and how could that be? After wondering about those questions for many years, I’ve now become convinced that we eventually become aware of our unity with the whole because it’s inescapable. The awareness is wired into us, because we’re wired into the universe. We can try with all our might to pretend we’re separate from the rest of the universe, but one way or the other it will catch up to us and welcome us back into its embrace.