What a man does for pay is of little significance. What he is, as a sensitive instrument responsive to the world's beauty, is everything!----H.P. Lovecraft

Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes---Walt Whitman

Very off-topic here, but this has been on my mind lately.

For those humans blessed and cursed with a measure of introspection, there are two basic responses when faced with the magnificent desolation of the Cosmos, with the manifold wonders, the intricate beauties, and the comfort-stripping terrors therein.

There is the Lovecraftian response of horror at the insignificance of mankind's place in the Universe, both on the individual and species level. Lovecraft felt that the deepest human emotion was Fear, and he wrote most of his fiction around this theme.

At the opposite pole, there is the Whitmanian response of awe and splendor, Whitman seeing unbounded Love and infinite creativity as the core nature of the Universe. This response infused all of his poetry, giving his work a mystic-yet-material sensibility.

I lean to Whitman, but I have enough Lovecraft in me to make myself miserable at times. We all fight this battle between Fear and Love within our hearts. But life is short and fragile, and wasting time wallowing in fear just adds entropy. Shall I add to the misery and suffering of the universe today, or shall I subtract from it and add some Love? That is the choice we all face when we get up in the morning.