[Julie Steiner]

Thanks for your link, too, Christine! Enjoyed. (Although it took me waaayyyyyy longer than it should have to figure out that the menu items were not in chronological order.)

Sorry that it wasn't your style, Jim. You might (or might not) enjoy this one by the same guy:

A New View of the Moon

[Roger Slater]

And don't forget, not only are we just a flicker in time but we are also just a grain of sand in space.

So what's the moral?

[Julie Steiner]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

And don't forget, not only are we just a flicker in time but we are also just a grain of sand in space.

So what's the moral?

Oh, I can think of several for me. Yours may vary.

One is that the next time I am tempted to fact-check friggin' cheese prices for people who are probably more interested in boycotting Bud Lite, I should remember that I don't actually have time for such trivia, since all we are is dust in the wind, etc.

Another moral might be that however insignificant our individual (and even our collective) lives may seem, they have an astonishing impact on the other lives around us, for good or ill. So it's worth trying to make my own blip more positive than negative. And it seems less daunting to do that if it's just a blip.

[Jim Moonan]

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Originally Posted by Roger Slater

And don't forget, not only are we just a flicker in time but we are also just a grain of sand in space.

So what's the moral?

Maybe it's the moral contained in the Seuss children's book Horton Hears a Who!

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[Roger Slater]

I agree, Jim. The unspoken premise that bigger is better or more important simply isn't true. Would we humans feel more important if we occupied an additional hair's width on the timeline? I certainly wouldn't. That's the thing about being finite creatures in an infinite universe. No matter how big you are, you're still finite, and finite always looks puny compared to the infinite. But our physical presence isn't the whole story. It's what we are that counts, not how much space we take up. Otherwise you'd have to say that our houses matter more than we do, and people are less significant than large boulders. The good Dr. Seuss had it right: a person's a person no matter how small.

[Jim Moonan]

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Originally Posted by Julie Steiner

Oh, I can think of several for me. Yours may vary.

One is that the next time I am tempted to fact-check friggin' cheese prices for people who are probably more interested in boycotting Bud Lite, I should remember that I don't actually have time for such trivia, since all we are is dust in the wind, etc.

Another moral might be that however insignificant our individual (and even our collective) lives may seem, they have an astonishing impact on the other lives around us, for good or ill. So it's worth trying to make my own blip more positive than negative. And it seems less daunting to do that if it's just a blip.

Ahh! With your synopsis and conclusions that you extract from it and apply to real-life, it now makes good sense. Especially with regard to inflation and the price of cheese. Your droll, adroit sense of humor always has a way of brightening things for me.

And yes to the notion that the flap of a butterfly's wings can be profound.

That video of the moon in the telescope captures humanity in its most beautiful, curious, astonished way. Thanks for that. (I've always had a thing for the moon five my surname).


We could skip rock from one astonishing revelation to the next, I'm sure... Look at this video footage of the 2017 total eclipse of the sun. (I watched if from Homer AK)

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