Tony - great post! I actually cheer myself up often by thinking of the enormity of the universe. When it looks like our species (and designated elites) are out to destroy our life giving planet and enslave and destroy humanity itself for a mountain of bright and shiny objects and bragging rights, I think of how insignificant we and our planet are in the scheme of things.

A belief in reincarnation also helps here..;) I like to think we're living in the Sudan or Calcutta of the Universe with other kinds of more subtle (and less purely preditory) forms of existence out there in better neighborhoods. Of course I also believe we live in a beautiful planet but that's in it's final throws.

I was watching a stand up act from Rogan (the fear factor guy) and was struck with what he said:

(Paraphrasing) "I was flying into LA seeing all this expance of uninhabited nature, and then seeing LA from above without trees or vegetation, just an giant expanse of concrete. It occured to me that the world is an organism in it's own right, and people and our concreting over of the world are a cancer that spreading over our host."

That's really an original and compelling metaphore - and seems like more than just a metaphore. People have believed for centuries in the world as a living organism or "Gaia" as they call it. It's comforting to know that all creation and reality isn't just what's going on in our little ant hill. That our part of the universe is like living in Gary Indiana when there's also a Paris and Vienna out there somewhere.

What's made me so philosophical today? Must be the Ginseng..lol