Intro 3.3: The Bigger Picture

While earth is an incredibly vast planet full of thousands of regions and landscapes, it is only a small dot in the universe. We have a ‘place’ on the truly giant map of the universe, in a similar way as Toledo, Ohio has a place on the map of the United States. Other planets have mountains, valleys, even volcanoes and ice (and probably liquid water), as well as gold, iron, rocks and calcium. This is significant because, while earth is our local home and we should think locally much of the time, we cannot forget to zoom out further than our own planet from time to time, in order to keep our overall picture of placing in the bigger picture. And like the entry above: earths landscapes change, and so does the universe. Stars die; planets are born, so on and so forth. Interestingly enough, as strong a feeling of permanence having a picnic alone in Joshua Tree National Park might evoke, if one overarching theme about geography manifests itself the most, it is its impermanence. I think that is very poetic.