A whole view of life is captured in the Old English word dūstsċēawung, which meant ‘dust-watching’ or ‘contemplation of dust’. People would watch motes of dust float in the sunlight, and think about how the dust used to be other things. A book, a tree, the walls of a city—a people, when it ceases to love itself—all will fade like the shouts of children on a summer day, or vanish like the memory of a dream. (IPA: [ˈduːstˌʃæɑ̯.wʊŋɡ])