Just another day on earth

In times of trouble I have found two thoughts to be of reliable succor. First is the thought that someday I will be dirt. Literally. I, along with everyone else, will one day be dirt, just plain old plant food. This thought reoccurred to me today as I was listening to more Brian Eno:

"One day, we will put it all behind,
We'll say, that was just another time,
We'll say, that was just another day on earth."

Throughout history people have stated this idea in different ways. The Pentateuch reminds us, "Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return." Edvard Munch said, "From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity". Even Abraham Lincoln is reputed to have told himself, "This too shall pass". Entropy wants to scatter us, both in body and in the memories of man, and someday soon enough it will get its way, but for today, at least for today, we carry on.

The second thought that creeps its way into my gray is the thought that each of us is smaller than we think. The ground on which I stand spins with the earth; the earth itself spins around the solar system; the solar system spins in one arm of the Milky Way; and the Milky Way flies outward from some center that we'll never fully comprehend. And if the Hindus are right, at some point this will all come collapsing inward and start over again, each of us with it, my samsara and yours being just a pocketed bauble in the samsara of the universe.

I've always liked the "powers of ten"-sort of diagrams that show up in introductory astronomy books. There's even a nice Java applet of the idea. Seeing this idea in motion is like traveling down the pant leg of a beast within a beast, and at the end -- at the tip of the toetip -- there are we.