perspective
— from history billions of years ago
If you are interested in history of the earth, evolution of the planet, geological stuff, intertwined with some psychology and climate change, this blog post might just fit you.
This all started when I was on holiday and somehow came across what I assume to be this very unpopular, small documentary. Apparently it is a NZ 45 min documentary that was made public in 2021. This documentary is called “Dinosaurs of Antarctica.” Though it doesn't particularly have the graphics of Jurassic park, it is still quite a good documentary.
Getting to the point, It mentioned the super-continent known as Pangaea which is part of the history of the earth. The documentary actually made Pangea quite interesting, and being me, I knew I had to do some research.
So I started researching Pangea, and somehow I came to the phases of the evolution of the world…
… and I found the Permian-Triassic Extinction. This Permian-Triassic extinction — 252 million years ago.
This was the one that killed 96% of all marine species and around 3/4 of all land species died out as well.
This was because “researchers found that ocean temperatures rose by around 11 degrees Celsius, making global marine oxygen levels drop by 76 percent. Creatures living in seafloor environments were hit the hardest, with roughly 40 percent of these deep-sea dwellings lacking oxygen entirely.”
Now for an explanation as to why this gave me perspective. This extinction is massive. The statistics speak for themselves! So, being someone who has experienced a good amount of climate anxiety, realizing that something way worse has happened in the past was reassuring, but at the same time, very much not.
If us humans aren’t going to stop pouring fossil fuels into the air, then we are going to go extinct at some point, which will mean we are probably the first species to actively cause our own extinction, know we are causing it, and continuing to do it to ourselves. Anyways, this all made me realize that us humans aren’t very important. We are only a blip in the life of our planet.
I don’t know if people actually fully understand this, but climate change is not going to kill the planet, it is just going to kill humans and a percentage of other innocent species. To visually show you how insignificant the entirety of the human race is, here is a photo:
Speaking of Kurzgesagt, their philosophical video called “Optimistic Nihilism” also gave me a lot of perspective. The takeaway from this image is that we are just a blip of time in the existence of the planet which is scary, but at the same time, oddly satisfying.
Get projections’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
Still, I'm sure most humans like you won’t want to feel useless, and you shouldn't, so here are some reasons to savor your very, very short existence.
- You (probably) only have one life, and considering how short it is, you should let it play out. Have fun with it and learn a bunch of stuff while you still can.
- Your actions, while they probably have a very small affect of the planet, give you a good ego boost and make you feel good, so.. help the planet.
- As Kurzgesagt said, you have about 5200 weeks to live.. and a good chunk of them are already probably over. Make the most of this life.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Thanks for reading. There is a bonus down below and some links I used for research.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
I’m adding this on after already publishing this because I have just gained more perspective. I was writing my other blog post about our names and how our brains respond to it, and I made the mistake of reading up too much.
Here’s the info:
Our brains are just made up of 60% fat and 80% water, but how does a bit of fat and water give us such complex thoughts and consciousness? Well, our brain is also made of salt, 86 billion nuerons, carbs, and protein.
Thats… it?
Like, think about that! That is all? How does that turn into personality, beliefs, mental health, and so, so much more?!
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
To end us off, I hope you got a few takeaways from this. By the way, here are some of my references.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12303932/ (Dinosaurs of Antarctica)
https://www.pangea.ca/ (Pangaea GIF)
https://www.britannica.com/story/spotting-a-supercontinent (Fancy Pangaea information)
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com (More perspective)
https://www.smithsonianmag.com (Quote about the Permian-Triassic Extinction)
