This essay serves as part of the STSC Symposium for May: “Beauty”. A monthly collaboration from STSC's writers around a set theme.
It was midnight. I stood at the end of the Williamsburg pier that overlooks the Manhattan skyline. The lights blinking and wavering in the late summer heat were like stars in the sky.
In fact, lean into that analogy: what, really, is different about the visual awe of uncountable expanses of stars to the visual awe of uncountable window lights of a city? To be sure, the scale is different — by untold magnitudes. And different values behind where the light comes from. Visually the two are similar; meaningfully they’re different. Normally I would argue that the magnitude of the stars places us at the point of awe.
But, that night, I realized the cityscape holds awe too. Not because of the diminution of humans in context to the Universe, but because of the immensity and scale of the things they have built.