I want to talk about perspective.
So heres a little story with the moral at the finish

I watched a video this week, the film was Deep Impact.
Its about an asteroid on a collision roadway with the Earth, and our
efforts to avert the disaster.

If it hit, it would build a, wait for it, deep impact! Youve got to
hand to those Hollywood types, havent you!

It came out in 1998, the same year as Armageddon, a film
about an asteroid on a collision road with the Earth, and our
efforts...well you understand the rest.

I like both films, its tough to choose between them.

Armageddon does have Liv Tyler, and the fantastic Diane
Warren song by Aerosmith, I Do not Wanna Miss a Thing.

On the other hand, Deep Impact has Tea Leoni, who could
focus my telescope any day of the week.

If you havent seen the films, look away now, because.
in Armageddon they stop the asteroid, but in Deep Impact
they dont.

Ok, you may look back now.
Hhhm, not sure that works.

Back to real life, and in fact, in the outer reaches of our universe,
they have spotted a little critter of an asteroid, which seems to
be heading our way.
Its a few hundred decades away, but plans have already been
investigated as to what to do.

Landing on it?
Er, I do not think so.

Nuking it from the Earth?
Well thats a grand idea, until they found that asteroids might either
be hard or soft, and there is no way of telling which type they are.

A hard one will simply divide into 2 or 3 asteroids instead of 1,
and a soft asteroid will simply absorb the impact like a sponge.

So the latest plans by the boffins is to create a massive nuclear
explosion *next* to the asteroid, and this will create enough
force to push it off course, generating it miss us.

So an asteroid impact doesnt really affect any of us, well be
long gone.

Thats the point I want to contruct .

An asteroid will on average, hit the Earth every 100 million decades ,
at least.
After being around for millions of months, the dinosaurs met their
end when an asteroid hit us 65 million years ago.

The Earth is around 5 billion decades old, and will last around
another 5 billion until our sun explodes.

I am always fascinated by these galactic (is that the word?
galactic? astrological?) facts and figures, the scale of the
numbers is awesome, and for me it drives home that although
we may think the world revolves around us, it doesnt.

Our presence here is fleeting, if the life of our universe is put
into a 24-hour day, mankind only appears in the last 30 seconds
of the last minute.

So the next instant you break a fingernail, the next measure you are
carved up in visitors , the next instant you say you have to do a job
you hate, stop for a second, consider our place as humans,
get some perspective, and then take action to enjoy yourself in
life!!!