A few thoughts

Were you to board a spaceship,

head out from earth at 99.999999 percent of light speed,

travel for six months and then head back home at the same speed,

your motion would slow your clock, relative to those that remain stationary on Earth,

so that you’d be one year older upon your return,

while everyone on Earth would have aged about 7,000 years.

Brian Greene

If the Milky Way galaxy
revolves around the center about once every 250 million years
how long is a day to whom?

The opposite of a fact is falsehood,

but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.

Niels Bohr

If something started everything,
and as of the last consensually agreed upon educated guess,
the known universe is about 13.7 billion years old,
and the Sun, about 4.6 billion years old,
is one of 200 to 400 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy,
among about 80 to 100 billion galaxies in the known universe
which appears to include about 10 billion trillion other planets
and there is only so much stuff, much of which ends up turning into other stuff,
how old are we?

Who are we?

We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star

lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe

in which there are far more galaxies than people.

Carl Sagan

If Earth is spinning at about 1,043 mph at the equator
revolving around the sun at about 66,660 mph
moving around the Milky Way Galaxy at about 489,600 mph
headed towards Andromeda at about 180,000 mph
while the Local Group of galaxies is pulled toward the Local Super Cluster at about 540,000 mph
how fast are we surfing through the cosmos?

We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star.

But we can understand the Universe.

That makes us something very special.

Stephen Hawking

If most believed Earth was the center of the universe
before Copernicus theorized otherwise in 1514
and most people didn’t know the Milky Way was made of stars
before Galileo theorized in 1609
and most didn’t know about dinosaurs before 1855
while most were unaware of other galaxies before 1923
and we found the first planet outside our solar system in 1992,
do we probably not know much more than we think we know?

There is a theory which states

that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here,

it will instantly disappear and be replaced

by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

All the stars, planets and galaxies that can be seen today 

make up just 4 percent of the universe. 

The other 96 percent is made of stuff astronomers can't see, 

detect or even comprehend.

Space

There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

Douglas Adams (1952 - 2001),

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

If life on Earth were one day...,
land based plants showed up around 10 P.M., or about 450 million years ago,
or at about 90.1% of Earths’ age,
asteroids big enough to cause large losses of life has hit about every 3 minutes,
or about once every 9.48 million years,
insects showed up around 10:30 PM, Dinosaurs - 11 PM,
'Humans' since somewhere between 200,000 to 2,500,000 years, about .04% of the age of the planet, 
about 20 seconds before midnight
while ‘Modern’ humans go back about 10,000 years, or about 0.0001% of Earth’s age,
...and what started everything showed up,
would he/she/it be very happy with what we’ve done with the place?

When they discover the center of the universe,

a lot of people will be disappointed to discover they are not it.

Bernard Bailey

If about 50 million years after Earth formed about 4.55 billion years ago
an asteroid about the size of Mars crashed into Earth
leaving the moon, which is about a quarter the size of Earth,
led to different kinds of  non 'air' breathing life about 3.9 billion years ago
until something started excreting oxgen, like our current vegetation,
which killed off whatever couldn’t adapt,
and about 99% of the thirty billion or so different kinds of everything that has ever lived on Earth 
doesn't exist anymore and left no descendants,
what are the chances of modern humans lasting how long?

Nothing in the entire universe ever perishes…but things vary, and adopt a new form.

Though this thing may pass into that, and that into this,

yet the sums of things remains unchanged.

Ovid (43 BC - 17 AD), Metamorphoses

If most 'everything' is made of many atoms
which may have very possibly been around before this universe,
which may continue to exist after the current universe is gone,
when something living dies or when an inanimate object disintegrates,
do the atoms become part of everything else?

Every atom you possess

has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms

on its way to becoming you.

Bill Bryson

If all the atoms in a human body are completely replaced with other atoms about every 9 years
and a child gets about half its DNA from each parent,
a quarter from each grandparent, an eighth from each great-grandparent and so on,
and the genetic code of everything alive and has ever lived is essentially the same only different, 
is everything on Earth relatively interconnected?

Is everything everything?

So when we say that 80% of the population can expect to be ancestors of all surviving individuals,

we are talking about their 22nd great-grandchildren…

[or] one four-millionth part.

Richard Dawkins

Professor of the Public Understanding, Oxford

If the genetic code of everything alive and has ever lived on Earth
is fundamentally the same but a little different,
did every living thing  basically come from the same beginning?

Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe

is that none of it has tried to contact us.

Bill Watterson

Calvin and Hobbes

If there is more unknown than known
like what started everything and why or if what started everything is still around,
and we don’t know for certain what happens before life or after death,
what is the purpose of cognitive existence?

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden

to work it and take care of it.

Genesis 2:15

Should we be able to think and do what we want
as long as it doesn’t infringe on anyone else doing the same?

The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started

and know the place for the first time.

T. S. Eliot

If Earth became uninhabitable,
and 'we' had a spaceship big enough for some people and enough supplies
that could go 250,000 miles per hour,
and it would take about 11,276 years without stopping or hitting anything to get to the nearest star, 
where the chances of there being a habitable planet may be at most one tenth of one percent, 
should we take better care of what we have?

Once off the cliff, there is still hope if you keep running.

By running ever faster you may not fall.

Wyle E. Coyote

Don’t tread on others unless they’re treading on you, be unloved,
criticize if it won’t help, lose your temper unless it would be bad to keep it,
be a very good bad example, lead without permission, do guilt,
offend many to benefit few or let ego override intelligence.

Don’t do anything you don’t want done to you, unless you need to.

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

Exodus 20:13

Don’t think you need want or want more than you need,
confuse compassion with justice, consciously over-compensate for unconscious doubt,
over-adore wanted acquisition, do what you don’t want to get what you don’t need,
underestimate irrationality, or think more of what could have than what may be.

Don’t believe everything you think, conclude what you want because you want to
or confuse effort with result.

Don’t afflict inanimate objects with conjured meaning.

Don’t want what you can’t get, let obsession with righteousness metastasize into hubris,
rationalize faults by blaming others, think you know what you don’t,
do what you don’t understand, over think or swim with the incontinent.

Don’t let small mistakes become big ones
by eliminating what’s not working and doing more of what is, sooner than later.

You shall not favor a poor man in his cause.

Exodus 23:3

Don’t think you know what you don’t, conclude what you want because you want to,
say you can if you cant, obfuscate or say you’re going to and don’t.

Don’t self fulfill prophesy.

You shall not raise a false report

Exodus 23:1

Don’t do to others what you don’t want done to you to get what you don’t need,
hide confusion with obliqueness, cut what can be untied, over-sacrifice need for want and vice versa,
catch falling knives, stereotypically generalize, resent, envy, slur, avenge,
ask a barber if you need a haircut, let what you own own you, lend need,
spend more than you make, build monuments, be selfish, unlovable or apathetic,
sacrifice future unhappiness for an unnecessarily pleasant present,
owe more than you can easily repay, succeed at failure or give up.

The true measure of a man

is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

Samuel Johnson

Give your family a better chance to succeed than your forefathers gave your parents
and your parents gave you.

Make luck happen.

Create a higher likelihood of a better present by securing need and achieving want
in the shortest time with the least risk for as long as possible,
by thinking of what and when relative to what was
and what may happen after what could happen next.

Do the most good, in the best way, with as many people
for as long as you can.

To do righteousness and justice

is more acceptable to Yahweh than sacrifice.

Proverbs 21:3

If there’s less risk and higher return in using a plan that matches circumstances
than trying to force circumstances to fit a plan,
relax, accept and embrace uncertainty, focus, hypothesize, experiment,
observe, acknowledge mistakes, compare, question the status quo,
consider the counterintuitive, anticipate anticipation,
find strength in weakness, weakness in strength and advantage in disadvantage,
know what you own, consult wisdom, accept and learn from criticism,
look within for faults found in others, embrace differences, respect momentum,
be incremental, bypass irrelevancy, protect your flanks, calculate risk,
prepare for instability when stable, reduce to the least common denominator,
rise above and control emotion, weigh choice, adapt, practice with someone better,
commit, accept responsibility, maximize what works, minimize what doesn’t,
tear band aids off swiftly, pay yourself forward and play to win.

Do the right thing when no one’s looking,
leave others better off for having known you and the world a better place than you found it.

Forget what you give, value what you get,
return what you borrow, replace what you break and forgive quickly.

Hope everything happens the way it does
and leave unanswered questions.

Have as much fun as soon as possible
with the least amount of risk for as long as you can.

George Hartzman