Perspective

Sometimes, I think, it helps to keep things in perspective...

You see one thing, and that gives you one perspective. Then, you see another thing, and that makes you think a little harder yet.

And so it goes, right?

All is comfortable, and ordered as one expects. And then you add even more perspective:

At some point, it makes you start to wonder. What's it all about. How small is small? How big is big? And then...

Wow. It kind of makes you wonder what we're arguing about, doesn't it? Or why we build buildings, and societies, or basically do anything besides...well...that. And beaches, yeah, beaches.

But wait, there's more. Because even as large as all that...the human mind (well, mine at least) can't even comprehend the distances between these objects. If you think the sizes blow you away, do a little research on just how...spread out...it all is.

So, does all that make you think the religious among us are more likely right? Or less?

And here's some more. Imagine a pile of phone books adding up to 8,000 pages. That would be a pile roughly 3 feet high. Think of this as an example of the diameter of the earth: about 8,000 miles. Each thin page represents a mile. From sea level to Mt Everest is a mere 5 pages. Most of us have never been more than a few hundred feet underground. How much control do we really have over all those pages under us. The temperature of this planet has an awful lot to do with the whole ball in addition to what little we contribute.

Imagine the life of the earth, 4.5 billion years. At one ice age every 25,000 years, that means we would have had 180,000 of them.

I am not trying to pick a fight with Wulfgar about global warming. In fact, at 11:30 on a Friday night, I don't even want to talk about global warming. But let's just keep things in perspective, ok? Can we at least agree that, to at least some degree, things might be happening that we can't control, and that have nothing to do with our (exceptionally) puny and (amazingly) insignificant lives?