Once the photos of earth came back from the Apollo missions, the penny started to drop for us all that this little blue marble was not so big after all. This message was delivered to my generation in our preteen years when we were learning what the world outside our square back yards was shaped like. Turns out it was small. The whole thing fit on a TV screen. All of it.
Little blue marble, worlds likely beyond this one, and truly vast amounts of space which were apparently not full of much. Even when I was a kid, I thought the world, earth, looked small. The message that the photos also taught me, which I was unaware of, was that the world also looked kind of lonely spinning out there like a little disco ball.
I forget this most of the time now. I think my life/work/problems/triumphs are a big deal. I make up stories, convincing ones, about this. It gives me the get up and go, (like Tang, the astronaut drink!) to haul out of bed and get busy. When I am swimming in the thimble of milk I call my reality, it all seems so Important. Endless. Meaningful. But really, not so much. My worries are threaded to fears of losing something I think I have or not getting something I think I want/need. I attach to those worries and start to huddle around them, and I invite you to join me. We join each other in these huddles.
It is useful to look at either really big things, like a galaxy (or a million of them) or a really small thing, like the barnacles on the edge of rock, to remember that being right sized has little to do with what I want. It is more about turning out from the huddle and getting some perspective, taking a deep breath, and accepting my spot on the little blue ball.
Oregon Coast, 2006
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Today I think many preteens view the world on an even smaller screen, their phones. They are able to communicate constantly with others, but are missing the physical world around them.