Sunday, November 09, 2008

Perspective

Life is full of challenges. All of us have to manage work issues, home issues, kid issues, financial issues, and so on, und so weiter.

The key to maintaining your sanity is to keep everything in perspective. The world doesn't come to an end when the delivery guy throws your morning newspaper into the bushes, and the sun will come up tomorrow, even though you had to tell the waitress three times that you'd like some mustard.

I thought this picture from Mars was awesome. It is the first picture ever taken of the earth from another planet. It really does put things in perspective.

9 comments:

Yorkshire Pudding said...

Sure you got that arrow the right way round Sam? A nice thing about growing older is that you develop better perspectives on time and the significance of things. Although I can still get riled, lots of stuff falls off me nowadays - like water off a duck's back. Why waste your energy?

rhymeswithplague said...

Wow! Just like going out in the back yard these past few nights and seeing both Venus and Jupiter so clearly. Makes the jar of mustard look insignificant indeed.

Sam said...

Rhymes - a jar of mustard is insignificant. Now, if it were the malt vinegar for my fries, that would be a different story altogether!

rhymeswithplague said...

Yorkshire Pudding, I think Sam got the arrow right. Earth (the little dot in the little box) looks like that when "you" (the observer, not the observed) are "here" (on the surface of Mars).

But the real you (the observed) *is* on Earth, of course. It's only your camera that is on Mars. So maybe you have a point.

But the real point of the photo, I think, is that Earth, to Martians (if there were Martians), would look just like Mars, to Earthlings (Terrans?), just not so red.

In other words, the farther away we are from one another, the more we appear alike. It is only in the realm of the up close and personal that we get hung up on how different we are.

It's too early in the morning to be this philosophical.

Note to self: Try to stop using so many parentheses....

rhymeswithplague said...

I think Yorkshire Pudding is wrong and that you have the arrow pointing correctly. Earth (the little dot in the box) looks like that when "you" (the observer) are on the surface of the planet Mars. Only if "you" are the observed should the arrow be pointing at the box. Of course, the real "you" is on the little dot in the box and only "your remotely operated camera" is on the surface of the planet Mars.

So since Earth from Mars looks just like Mars from Earth, only not as red, the real point may be that the farther away we are from one another the more we are alike. It's only when we're "up close and personal" that our differences seem so great.

--rhymeswithplague, Philosopher-at-large

Kate said...

Lovely pic! Super post. Right up my cup of tea.

rhymeswithplague said...

I seem to have sent virtually the same comment seven hours apart...strange! When I sent the second one the first one wasn't there and I thought it had disappeared. Maybe you just hadn't reviewed it yet.

Sam said...

It's OK Rhymes, I've beenb known to do the same thing!

Anonymous said...

Even from that distance I can see I am having a bad hair day. Great, now I have Martians judging me...