The past week I've been watching a lot on Hurricane Sandy. It's been tragic to see the damage and destruction caused, and yet it's left me in awe.
It's funny how we think we have it all together. We think we've come so far with our infrastructure, our technology, our weather-predicting systems, our safeguards, our advanced systems and thinking and buildings and procedures. We have it all under control.
Then a hurricane hits.
Something WAY beyond our control, that no matter how much we've planned and prepared for, we have absolutely no chance against. It takes us years, decades, to plan infrastructure and create streets and buildings and neighbourhoods and get everything just how we want it. Then a hurricane/earthquake/ tsunami/tornado hits and those decades of hard work are washed away in seconds, and we realize how truly infinitesimal we really are. And that while we delude ourselves into thinking we have an ounce of control over anything, the truth is that have absolutely none.
And then...think about it in the larger scale. The amount of destruction that a hurricane does - and realizing that a hurricane covers maybe 1/10 of the earth's surface at a time, which means the earth is SO much larger. And the earth is tiny compared to other planets. And it's a dot in our solar system. And it's a grain of sand in the milky way galaxy. And it's a spec of dust (if even) when realizing that there are millions of galaxies, each with millions of stars and planets.
And the hurricane that caused all that damage is 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000...1% the size of our universe.
And we were blown away by the hurricane. We are tiny.
It's funny how we think we have it all together. We think we've come so far with our infrastructure, our technology, our weather-predicting systems, our safeguards, our advanced systems and thinking and buildings and procedures. We have it all under control.
Then a hurricane hits.
Something WAY beyond our control, that no matter how much we've planned and prepared for, we have absolutely no chance against. It takes us years, decades, to plan infrastructure and create streets and buildings and neighbourhoods and get everything just how we want it. Then a hurricane/earthquake/ tsunami/tornado hits and those decades of hard work are washed away in seconds, and we realize how truly infinitesimal we really are. And that while we delude ourselves into thinking we have an ounce of control over anything, the truth is that have absolutely none.
And then...think about it in the larger scale. The amount of destruction that a hurricane does - and realizing that a hurricane covers maybe 1/10 of the earth's surface at a time, which means the earth is SO much larger. And the earth is tiny compared to other planets. And it's a dot in our solar system. And it's a grain of sand in the milky way galaxy. And it's a spec of dust (if even) when realizing that there are millions of galaxies, each with millions of stars and planets.
And the hurricane that caused all that damage is 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000...1% the size of our universe.
And we were blown away by the hurricane. We are tiny.
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