Blue marbles & stuff........

Saturday, February 9......Just hangin' out waitin' for hair & whatever........
This world, this little old blue marble spinning in the vastness of space, this speck in the universe, this world. Our world. As someone of note once remarked, the world is always with us.
And has been since our beginning. It’s such a part of us that, like breathing, we mostly don’t take any notice of it. It’s so integraged into our being, is such a part of our essence that it’s almost inconceivable that one could exist without the other. But, on the proverbial other hand, I’m pretty sure that if we humans were to become extinct tomorrow, the world, this ‘blue marble’ of ours, would continue spinning. The seasons would continue to pass and the world would go on without us.
I’m pretty sure that our passing would create a void and if, as t’is said, nature abhors a vacuum, something would replace us. I cannot predict what that might be. Perhaps as the elephant replaced the mastodon, our replacement might be a variation of ourselves, as we may very well be an evolutionary substitute for whatever humanoids preceded us.
And let me point out that this has absolutely nothing to do with the theories of evolution or creation. Those
are simply words created by us in our egotistical attempt to define and understand ourselves and since our language will disappear with our extinction, of little import to the world.
Abe Lincoln began his speech at Gettysburg with the words, “The world will little note nor long remember”.......Our history, what we know of it, goes back only a few thousands of years. Our best guesses as to what preceded us can be likened to the blind men describing an elephant.

John Godfrey Saxe's ( 1816-1887) version of the famous Indian legend,

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The First approach'd the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!"

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, -"Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 'tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!"

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a snake!"

The Fourth reached out his eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," quoth he,
"'Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!"

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!"

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Then, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a rope!"

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

MORAL.

So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!
And so forth and so on ad infinitum, ad nauseum....
Justin Other Smith