30 years ago in the PBS series Cosmos, Carl Sagan used his pretend starship to help us conceptualize the vastness of space. He would get onboard and talk about how if you traveled at the speed of light, it would still take you thousands of years to get from one point to another. He condensed the history of the universe into a single cosmic calendar year to help us conceptualize the enormous amount of time that has passed since the Big Bang, which took place on day one. The earth did not form until September. And human beings have only been around for the last couple of minutes of the last day in December.

We are nothing but flyspecks that will exist for a nanosecond. I think the idea that there is a supreme being out there having conniption fits about what we do with our knobby bits is born of ego. In the larger scheme of things, what the hell difference could it possibly make? I guess some people look at the world around them and they’re struck by the wonder and mystery of it all, and some look at the world around them and say, “This is all about me.”