Perspective

One of my favorite forms of reflection is to review the known timeline of our planet and then compare that to the timeline of Homo Sapiens.  

Earth was formed about 4.5 billion years ago.  The first single-celled life form (Prokaryotic Archaea) appeared on our planet about 4.1 billion years ago (and these organisms are still around).  Multi-cellular life forms appeared 2.1 billion years ago.  The earliest land animals (semi-aquatic amphibian tetrapods) crawled out of the oceans 350 million years ago.  The mass extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs happened 66 million years ago.  The first primates showed up 55,000,000 years ago, and the precursor to humans finally appeared 7 million years ago.  The first "real human" evolved in Africa 2.8 million years ago, and it took 1 million years for their descendants to begin migrating from Africa to other places.  The first confirmed controlled use of fire by humans happened 1 million years ago.  The first emergence of our species, Homo Sapiens, occurred 315,000 years ago.  

So for 93% of the Earth's history, there were no recognizable humans walking the planet. Oh, and the first "anatomically modern" version of Homo Sapiens evolved 46,000 years ago, so we could say that humans that resembled the current crop of people have only been around for 1% of the earth's history.  Humans are new,  and our share of the geologic time arc is quite small.

But we think we are The Most Important Thing To Ever Happen on Planet Earth. Hmmm...maybe not.  

For sure, Homo Sapiens has proliferated.  The population has grown exponentially over the past 5,000 years (from 50 million about 4,800 years ago to 7.8 billion today).  For sure, we have used the weirdly large frontal lobes of our brain to invent heaps of shit and organize massive groups of individuals into religions, nations and empires.  For sure, we have obliterated thousands of  species (sabre-tooth tigers, wooly mammoths, giant ground sloths, dodo birds, passenger pigeons, and on & on). And we have created conditions to allow other species to flourish (dogs, livestock, etc.).  

But the planet motors on, and will continue for 3 to 7 billion years before the sun turns into a Red Giant and burns it to a sad, lifeless rock.  Homo sapiens probably won't be around to see the end of days.  Good old Mother Earth has quite a lot of life left no matter what we pesky humans might do before we join the list of extinct species.

Yeah, we ain't that important.  We are just another successful animal that has experienced a population explosion.  We will eventually join the dinosaurs and the dodo bird.  

This is what I turn to when my panties are in a bunch over politics, or I can't figure out how to play a Big Walter lick on my harmonica.  In the end, it's all pretty insignificant, so no need to worry too much.