Large numbers

01-13-2003, 04:14 AM

I think there is something strange in the relationship between the
small and the very large. It goes like this:

Let's say one generation is twenty years. 100 years is five
generations.

Consider 200 million years. The relationship with everyday life
alters here because of the scale. One million years is fifty
thousand generations. Fifty thousand generations is a lot but I can
still grasp it.

But 200 million years is ten million generations. 200 million years
is too large a number to consider properly in the context of our
modern age. It goes beyond the ability to describe in terms I can
relate to.. Into the realm of the unknowable.

Sometimes I think what is it that is so important about me being
realized. These great sages gave up everything and one even hung on
a cross in front of his mother for it. Why so important?

Then I look around and see that the century we live in will be
reviled for all time because it wasted the oil that took at least 200
million years to produce. Wasted it for all time. Why? Because for
each person, self realization takes a back seat to self interest.

There is no problem on earth as big as my own ignorance.

Love
Bobby G.