Global era mantra “It’s a Small World After All” has been drilled into our minds for decades. An era of instant travel and electronic communication shrinks time and distance. We need to accept that this is a tiny shared globe, shrinking daily.
Except that it isn’t, at least for each of us. We may view real-time feeds in Japan, or take a jet to Florida, but to walk across town still takes a while. Walking 100 miles is a significant accomplishment requiring time, energy, stamina. Outside cities, there remain vest stretches of terrain, perhaps not wild, but not suburban or urban paved over.
More than that, each of those actual places, viewed as we walk, contain infinite marvels. We may never notice much from a plane or a car but the fantastic variety of life goes on, fractal in intensity and meaning.
Yes, I know it is different now. Humans change the climate, could destroy the biosphere with doomsday weapons, affect every ecological nook and cranny evolved over the last millions of years. We are a nasty invasive species. Everywhere, all the time, and that was never true before.
But I go forth daily, and the immediate world is still large, and gives a clue to how vast a planet really is. There is a lot of space. And everywhere is not quite so crowded as our immediate area may be.
Hopeful.
HuntingtonHarborThoughts 