Ad Astra Per Aspera

Fans of the open world RPG Genshin Impact would be familiar with the term “ad astra abyssoque,” meaning “to the stars and the abyss.”

So let us use that to translate the phrase in question. “Ad astra,” upon referencing the phrase from mentioned video game, would mean “to the stars.”

How about “per aspera,” then? Well, with some prior Latin knowledge one would know that “aspera” means rough, tough, harsh, or difficult. Per, in English, means through or by the means of. Seeing as English is heavily based in Latin roots we can assume, especially with the context, that they are the same.

So we are left with “to the stars through the harsh/difficult.” Let us now tweak it a little to sound nice, for lack of a better term.

“To the stars through difficulties.”

Of course, one could have looked it up on Google, Bing, or their preferred search engine, but I saw the “ad astra” and realised upon seeing “aspera” that it was Latin, and couldn’t resist going through the process myself.

Of course, I checked it on the internet after to be certain that I had come to the correct conclusion, and voilà, I had.

Now, let’s discuss the meaning of the phrase, not the literal words that it is composed of. Just from the phrasing we can infer that it is a motivational quote of sorts. About pushing through the difficult to achieve.

I discovered the phrase on the internet during one of my many research spirals in which I went from searching for words such as “rendezvous” that were used in English but were actually full words from foreign languages, to whole phrases of the same nature, all the way down to a forum post about inspirational phrases in foreign languages, where I stumbled upon this, my new favourite phrase, in the comments. I would put a link the forum post but unfortunately that was a while ago so I’ve lost it and it’s way down in the comments anyways.

Back to the point. I really liked the phrase because of one, my great interest in stars and all things astronomy/astrology, and two, because it was so real.

So much media and quote-unquote inspirational quotes depict hardships such as depression, eating disorders, and extreme lack of motivation as something that you can defeat once in some sort of epic battle then leave behind. But that’s just not true. You live with it forever, occasionally backsliding, often feeling hopeless, but you struggle and fight to overcome it, to hold it off, even for a little while.

Constantly struggling for the stars while fighting through the hardships. The best thing is that it doesn’t say you have to make it and stay there. It just says “to the stars.” Always headed to the stars, even if you don’t make it there, or if you can’t stay with them.

Always going for the stars, whether you make it or not. And that’s the most important bit; It’s okay if you don’t make it all the way if you keep fighting to get there.

Ad astra per aspera. Here we go once more