When and why it was written

When

Around 170 CE, in the private notebooks.

Why

A deliberate corrective. Marcus's notes tend toward the austere, and he occasionally instructs himself to look up.

What it means

Stoicism is often read as pure endurance. This passage is evidence against that reading.

The second half does the work. He does not ask himself to admire the stars from below but to see himself among them, moving with them. The consolation on offer is scale: you are part of the thing you are looking at.