Big Enough

Standing at the edge of the ocean, looking out at the expansive horizon my mind is hushed into what can only be called reverence.  A single word echoes in the silence of my skull out from the din of competing concerns.

“Big”

   I’ve felt similar humility whenever I’ve climbed to the summit of a mountain, or when I watch National Geographic and those awesome films about places I’ll only visit through the marvel of television. 

   I’ve seen the photos of the size comparisons between the planets of our solar system.  I was amazed at how small the earth was.  Then when comparing our earth to the sun, and then again to the hyper giants in the far reaches of our galaxy, well, I couldn’t put them into context:  So I worked with the numbers and found everyday objects to serve as comparison that puts things into perspective for me.

   If the Earth were to be represented by a sphere one centimeter (0.39 of an inch, or about the size of a pencil eraser) in diameter, then Our sun would be represented as a sphere with a diameter of 109 centimeters (about 3 ½ feet, or as I found, a hoola-hoop). That is marvelous by itself, but remember my mentioning the hyper giant?  That’d be VY Canis Majoris (frankly that name is so totally lame, I’m renaming it Fat Albert because this is my blog and I have all the authority).  But, using my numbers comparison game, Fat Albert would be represented by a sphere 2.3 kilometers (about 1.43 miles or the entire base of the Eiffel Tower.)  Now granted these are rough estimations because frankly it’s extremely difficult to find a well known circular object that is that large, (even Disney world is only half that much).

   So how’s that for comparisons?  Now how about I wind this up with something meaningful?  OK…when I was in Elementary School there was this kid named David Green.  I mean he was head-and-shoulders taller than every other boy in the 5^th Grade, even had muscle definition in his arms.  Everyone wanted Dave on their lunch recess softball team because he could really hammer that ball.  He was the object of both adoration and scorn to us guys...in those years.  But as time passed we all began to grow and catch up with David.  Slowly his awesomeness faded as we all became competent in our own rights. Moral of it all I guess is the comparisons of the great mass of an object is relative.  We don’t see Fat Albert so we don’t tremble with the awesome size of it, like say the boys of the 5^th Grade class and David Green.  That’s because of the distance when comparing worlds.  Just as we don’t consider much significant other people’s concerns are compared to our own.  Or how insignificant we appear compared to the vast ocean until we’re standing at its boundaries.

  I wonder if the little creatures in the tide pools are doing the same thing? You know, busy with ferreting out the solution to their current pressing challenges with the least bit of concern on how big other things are out there?  Actually, what can be done about it anyway?  I dunno…just wondering.