Can you see it? The jumble of stones that are too square to be natural on the stubby pillar in the middle of the frame? You spend all that time climbing the hill, building your monastery in the middle of nowhere, then one day, no new monks come. And it goes back to the land whence it came, as will everything we do.
For some reason, visiting Meteora made me very, very cognizant of the fleeting blip in time our presence represents. We think we've been here for sooooooooo long, and we can't imagine the world without us, but if you stretch your arms wide and the beginning of the earth is at the tip of your right middle finger, all of human existence will be removed when you trim your left middle fingernail off. To make it even more stark, get two friends to stretch their arms and you stand fingertip to fingertip in a straight line - your furthest friend's fingertip is the Big Bang.
Don't worry, this is the last one from Meteora, so I won't be scaring the children (or the adults) with our insignificance anymore (well, for a while anyway).
