This is brilliant:  Putting Time In Perspective.  Just click it, it's amazing.

Here's my larger exposé:

I have a tendency to try and intellectualize time and mankind's place in the cosmos.  Ultimately, when we're talking about pre-Big Bang or the apparent "death" of the universe many trillions of years from now, I think it's so far beyond human comprehension that it's absolutely not worth worrying about.  In fact, it's so laughably ridiculous, that you're really only left with one logical choice:  be happy, do something meaningful, and enjoy your life.

(Or, more simply, do whatever the fuck you want.)  

Still, I appreciate understanding just where we stand in the grand scheme of things*, and this post on waitbutwhy.com does a brilliant job of putting it all in perspective.  

From the past 24 hours all the way to the end of the universe and time itself, the post provides a humbling and beautiful way of understanding who we are and what life really is or means (at least in any absolute sense).

Ultimately, I don't think it means much of anything.  But, I also find this incredibly liberating.  It makes me more appreciative of the present moment and the immense potential for joy we have together, right now.  It's up to us to choose how we go about crafting this existence of ours, as best we know how, ever onward, for however long we might be here.

Everything is changing.  Come what may, be happy.  

Click here for the full post.  I had trouble embedding the whole thing, so there's a brief sample below.

*as best we can know given current scientific understanding...which, let's be honest, is very possibly totally wrong...I mean, I think that's kind of the point of this timeline thing--recognizing that we're really quite small and really don't know much.
**Juno Day drummer Mike Mahoney writes about a lot of these ideas in his book of poetry, Emergence.  

Looking at technological change from the perspective of the evolution of life itself.  Really interesting.

Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist, talks about luck, coincidence, and faith.  I like the idea that there is physics involved in this--not merely some metaphysical, spiritual "hope" or "wish" that magically makes things happen, but some real, tangible, natural force...our desire, energy, and intention...our choice.  I like the idea that this type of "magic" can be explained.

Last night I finished Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.  It's an amazing book.  I highly recommend it.  At any rate, via the miracle of YouTube, this man's search for videos of Dr. Frankl eventually led me to some interviews with Carl Jung, and from there, logically, Will Smith. The son of West Philadelphia alludes to The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo, and speaks about that magical "Universe" business.

"The way he had designed it, the enormous structure was to be a grand harmony of opposite forces....'A force at rest is at rest because it is balanced by some other force or by its own reaction,' he had once written....He considered mathematics a spiritual perception, as well as the highest science, and since all engineering questions were governed by 'simple mathematical considerations,' the suspension bridge was a 'spiritual or ideal conception.'"
-The Great Bridge, David McCullough

Martin Rees, astronomer, provides perspective on where we, as 21st-century humans, find ourselves.

Oh, and because the title to this blog post made me think of it...

Damn!  That is good television...how could you not keep watching after this?  I know I was hooked...