Atmosphere

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

In all of her time spent watching others, she hadn’t picked up on this part of falling in love, that someone could look at you as if you were the very center of everything.

Joan considered this. “The Jewish philosopher Spinoza said that God did not necessarily make the universe, but that God is the universe. The unfolding of the universe is God in

action. Which would mean science and math are a part of God.” “And we are a part of God because we are a part of the universe,” Vanessa said. “Or better yet, we are the universe. I would go so far as to say that as human beings, we are less of

a who and more of a when. We are a moment in time—when all of our cells have come together in this body. But our atoms were many things before, and they will be many things after. The air I’m breathing is ...

body right now—the cells, the air, the bacteria—it’s not only mine. It is a point of connection with every other living thing, made up of the same kinds of particles, ruled by the same physical laws. ...

into ashes. Eventually, you will return to the Earth. You already are a part of the Earth. What better reason do we have to take care of this Earth and everything on it ...

“The trees need our breath, and our breath needs the trees,” she continued. “As scientists we call that symbiosis, and it is a consequence of evolution. But the

natural consequences of our connections to each other—that’s God, to me. I believe in it because I can see it with my own eyes. I know it exists. But I also believe in it because I want to believe in it. I want to spend my energy thinking not of how my actions might be

frowned upon by a man in the sky, but how my actions affect every living and non-living thing around me. Life is God. My life is tied to yours, and to everyone’s on this planet. How does that not instantly make us ...

that we are not...

if you’re unhappy, it’s hard to watch other people be happy.

if you were happy, you wanted others to be happy alongside you.

“Happiness is so hard to come by. I don’t understand why anyone would begrudge anyone else for managing to find some of it.”

The rules of society came for everyone eventually: the too big, too small, too

wild, too quiet, too strong, not strong enough.

“Hard to believe any one person has any significance,” he said. “I knew that before, but I never knew it, until now. Human life is…meaningless.”

How was it that two people, right next

to each other, given the rarest of perspectives, could draw two totally opposite conclusions? When Joan looked back at the Earth, she was overwhelmed with her own life’s meaning...

was the meaning she...