What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.

The line reframes catastrophe as transformation. From the caterpillar’s limited perspective, the dissolution of its familiar form looks like annihilation—“the end of the world.” Yet a wider intelligence (“the master”) recognizes the same event as metamorphosis into a butterfly. The contrast dramatizes how fear and despair can arise from partial knowledge, while wisdom interprets disruption as a stage in growth. As a consolatory aphorism, it suggests that endings—loss, upheaval, identity change—may be prerequisites for a larger becoming, and that meaning depends on the vantage point from which we judge change.