Pollyana Universe

A friend and recent addition to the readership of this blog sent me a link to an animation about the scale of the universe. It was reminiscent of the time my eighth grade science teacher used a roll of toilet paper to describe the existence of humans on our planet: a fraction of a single sheet from a two-ply roll. Armed with this reflection, I looked out on the world we live in today.
It's a pretty messed up planet. I suspect that outer space visitors might reconsider their invasion and wait for a sunnier time to descend on us. Maybe even wait another millimeter or two on that roll of toilet paper to see if they can avoid running into us at all.
It makes sense that back in the nineteen-fifties that we were a regular stop for cosmic visitors. We had that whole quaint, suburban feel to us. The threat of nuclear immolation was a threat, but the fear it generated kept us all on our collective toes. There were still vast regions of the globe that hadn't been mined, forested, paved, consumed. Area Fifty-One was probably a space truck stop for the weary intergalactic traveler. These days, it seems much more likely that the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" scenario would play out: We're in the way of an pan-galactic highway system. Our planet is just a piece of a much bigger puzzle or machine that is waiting for replacement parts.
But if you return to that scrap of toilet tissue and consider what we have managed to create and experience in the tiniest sliver of time, it gives on hope for making it to the next perforation. Or at least it does for me. In a universe that is mostly empty space, I take solace in the fact that I live someplace that is mostly solid.