[at-l] 15 billion light yrs.

[sandpiperhiker@yahoo.com (Amy Friends Stone)]

> "It's interesting to speculate on the reasons that 
> make men so anxious to debase themselves. As in that

> idea of feeling small before nature.  It's not a 
> bromide, it's practically an institution. Have
> you noticed how self-righteous a man sounds when
> he tells you about it? Look, he seems to say, I'm so

> glad to be a pygmy, that's how virtuous I am. Have 
> you heard with what delight people quote some great 
> celebrity who's proclaimed that he's not so great 
> when he looks at Niagara Falls? It's as if they were

> smacking their lips in sheer glee that their best is

> dust before the brute force of an earthquake. As if
> they were sprawling on all fours, rubbing their
> foreheads in the mud to the majesty of a hurricane. 
> But that's not the spirit that leashed fire, steam, 
> electricity, that crossed oceans in sailing sloops, 
> that built airplanes and dams...  and skyscrapers. 
> What is it they fear? What is it they hate so much, 
> those who love to crawl? And why?"
>   "When I find the answer to that," she said,
> "I'll make my peace with the world."
> -- Ayn Rand
>   from "The Fountainhead"

David and Goliath syndrome, eh?  Why do these two see
"feeling small" as such a bad thing?  It's a literal
sensation of the sheer difference in size, in
magnitude of power.  It's a recognition of the reality
of the relationship.  Those skylines and tunnels can
be obliterated in moments by a force greater than
man's.  It is man's spirit (and some bit of arrogance)
that tackles nature in the first place, and
eventually, man will suffer even more greatly because
he changes too much with too little knowledge of the
long term effects.  



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