macro and micro

i love this paragraph from one of the books on my current pile,

 "Humboldt showed Darwin how to investigate the natural world from within and without.  Both Humboldt and Darwin had the rare ability to focus in on the smallest detail--from a fleck of lichen to a tiny beetle--and then to pull back and out to examine global and comparative patterns.  this flexibility of perspective allowed them both to understand the world in a completely new way.  

it was telescopic and microscopic, sweepingly panoramic and down to the cellular levels, and moving in time from the distant geological past to the future economy of native populations."  

it seems this can be applied to our purview on life itself:  writing, how we interact with others, the way in which we go about our day.  the micro and macro both matter and it's this both/and that can lend so much wisdom!

(from The Invention of Nature:  Alexander von Humboldt's New World by Andrea Wulf)