The sun still rises. What we see has’nt changed. What we understand has.

I keep a telescope in the garden. I hardly use the damn thing. It just stands there—a quiet nudge to keep my head and heart in proportion. These days I don’t think perspective is merely important; it’s the thing.

Once, in the second century, Claudius Ptolemy wrestled the sky into a system of circles within circles—epicycles and eccentricities—to explain what people could plainly see: the sun, moon, planets, and stars wheeling overhead and sinking in the west. Who could argue with the eye? Earth was the centre; Man the measure. Aristotle imagined the heavens tethered like an elephant to a post. It made sense—until it didn’t.

Then Galileo turned a tube of glass toward Jupiter and saw small moons circling that giant world. He tracked the phases of Venus and understood: Venus orbits the sun, not us. The telescope didn’t change the sunrise. It changed us. We were displaced—off centre, smaller, humbler—and the morning kept coming anyway.

Centuries later Edwin Hubble used the Mount Wilson telescope to examine a smudge in the sky and found it wasn’t a cloud in our own galaxy at all, but an island universe: Andromeda. The Milky Way was no longer “everything,” just one galaxy among billions. We learned the universe is expanding—not because things are blasting through space faster than light, but because space itself is stretching, carrying galaxies apart. Again, the facts shifted. Again, the sun still rose.

Now we have the James Webb Space Telescope peering back toward the first light—infant galaxies, ancient dust, the raw materials of stars and life. We are dwarfed by scale, yet invited into wonder. And still, morning is morning: the rim of sun lifts; shadows loosen; birds get on with being birds.

So what does this do for an ordinary life lived on a small patch of earth?

First, perspective rescues us from the tyranny of immediacy. Headlines shout; timelines itch. The sky moves at a stately pace and refuses to be hurried. Look up. Breathe. Your troubles are not trivial—but they are not everything.

Second, perspective asks for humility without humiliation. We are not the centre. Good. That means we are also not the whole problem—and not the whole solution. Do your part and let the rest belong to the wider pattern.

Third, perspective sharpens responsibility. When you accept your scale, you become precise: love the people in front of you, tend the work that is yours, keep your promises. The telescope doesn’t excuse us from life; it calls us to the right size of courage.

Finally, perspective refreshes awe. Awe is not naïveté; it is clear-eyed. Galileo saw facts and felt wonder. Hubble counted galaxies and felt wonder. Webb maps cold dust and I stand at the kettle at 5 a.m., watching a bruised sky lighten, and feel the same thing. Wonder steadies the hand.

The sunrise has never once asked our permission. It arrives, indifferent to our opinions of ourselves, our politics, our victories or failures. That is not coldness; it is mercy. The world is larger than our mood.

So this is my practice—call it a rule of life if you like:

• Look up before looking down.
• Name what is in your control and act there.
• Keep a routine: move your body, make your bed, make your art.
• Trade certainty for curiosity.
• Let awe have the last word.

One day I’d like to stand beside Ptolemy at dawn, shoulder to shoulder, and watch the same sun clear the horizon. Our models would disagree, but our faces would be lit by the same light. That’s the paradox I’ve come to trust: the more our understanding changes, the more the essentials endure. The sun still rises. Let that humble you. Let it hearten you. Then get on with the day.