Earlier this month, the celebrated cellist Yo-Yo Ma turned seventy—an occasion that led him to reflect on not just his own past but also the planet’s future. In a letter to fans, he wrote, “Today, I am worried. In the year 2100, my youngest grandchild will be 76. She will be meeting a world I will not see. I wonder what the world will be like then?” Not long ago, Ma sent us recommendations for three books that have contributed to his thinking on this theme—books that interrogate timeless aspects of human nature, our complex relationships to one another, and our entanglement with the natural world. (He explores some of these subjects on his newest podcast, “Our Common Nature,” which premièred on WNYC last week.) Each book, he shows, offers a different kind of guidance on how to cultivate a better world for our descendants.

Meditations

by Marcus Aurelius

I’m drawn to Marcus Aurelius these days because reading him focusses my thinking, aligns my priorities, and reminds me that there are certain human values that endure across millennia—that trying to practice the virtues of wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance is the best hope I have to lead a balanced life in our impermanent, ever-changing world.

“Meditations” was written as a private journal, not meant for public consumption. It is made up of Marcus Aurelius’s advice to himself, produced perhaps as an antidote to being constantly surrounded by and subjected to the temptation and corruption of life as Emperor. It’s a reminder to look within ourselves for purpose and meaning. Marcus Aurelius believed that happiness comes from the inside, that it derives from cultivating dignity and compassion rather than from external success. I feel this is precisely the kind of humanism that society is missing today.

Indigo

by Jenny Balfour-Paul

When I was in school, the subjects I studied were compartmentalized in such a way that when I graduated, I didn’t realize how interconnected the world was (and has always been). It has given me so much joy to discover those connections, and “Indigo” provided many such revelations—learning how a plant became a dye, how a dye became a color desired all over the world, and how that color changed habits, built economies, and spurred artistic creation. Even today, the denim your jeans are made from might be spun from cotton grown in Asia, its name derived from the French city where blue serge fabric originated (“de Nîmes”), dyed with indigo that was once worth more than its weight in gold. This simple fabric is present throughout world history, from Biblical times to today, from India to Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Asia, South America. “Indigo” gave me insight into a dynamic that has become like a mantra for me: that if you look deeply enough at any object, any story, any song—no matter how familiar—you will find the world.

Reading “Indigo” inspired me to work with New York Public Schools to create a program for sixth graders which would help them see some of the interconnections that it took me so many years to discover, equipping them with a sense of the many threads that link people, cultures, centuries, continents, humans, and nature. In the program, my colleagues and I worked with students to grow indigo, make dye, and then create wearable items. It was one of the hardest and most rewarding times of my life.

Orbital

by Samantha Harvey

It takes real virtuosity to write across shifting scales and perspectives, as Harvey does in this novel. One moment, the Earth is Mother Earth, giver of life; in the next, it is just a tiny blue dot. In the same way, Harvey sends the reader lurching from the mundane to the life-altering—a failed attempt to heat up garlic results in the space-station cabin reeking for weeks; an astronaut reels after learning of their mother’s sudden death. The reader’s concern moves from the survival of the six astronauts to the cell cultures in their onboard lab, which, by one calculus (they may yield lifesaving scientific advancements), could be considered more valuable than the lives of the six astronauts.

“Orbital” gives me hope. I feel that, today, we need this kind of encompassing vision—one that understands the smallest detail and the biggest picture, that can move effortlessly between analysis and empathy, that acknowledges the individual and the planet at the same time, and that recognizes humans as part of nature and our survival as inseparable from the health of the Earth.