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“We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.” –Stephen Hawking

Our physical universe is full of scaling. Higher, lower, bigger, smaller…it’s all relative.

Our much revered Sun – the source of our survival – is just an average star compared to the vast galaxy of stars in the cosmos. Our one and only earth is merely a minor planet, with much bigger planets even amongst our known list of planets as can be seen in the pic.
Likewise we humans may feel we are the best of all the species but vastness of nature scales us down and we become insignificant and small, like any other animal.
Look closely at the below pictures that I clicked in Sydney and surrounds. There is vast sea, there is land, mountains and trees but where are humans? Look for them. Very small part of nature.

Watson’s Bay

Watson’s Bay in Sydney

And last but not the least….me in my old picture below. Clicked in India (in mid 1990s)

Climbing a huge branch/root of huge Kapok tree (Ceiba) at Lal Bagh, Bangalore/Bangaluru

In the above picture the giant tree makes a regular woman look smaller than she is  And the little shrub on the floor gets totally ignored by the bigger size of the woman and the Kapok tree.
Here are my lyrics…

“I really look up to you
so please don’t put me down…”

Of course, it’s all relative…our size, beauty, greatness/smallness, even our status and wealth.

Who else knows this better than us humans who spend our whole life living up to others, trying to get taller, bigger, thinner, prettier or richer than our friends and relatives. Appearances matter too much. Bulimic and anorexic young girls aspire to create bigger pouts and whatever, like their media role-models (KK).

Humans label each other as a pygmy or a giant, based on their size. But all shapes and sizes are normal. Gulliver of Gulliver’s Travels experienced this very well, as the giants and Lilliputians cared for him better than his own-sized people. In nature, giant dinosaurs had their own world as now big elephants do. We admire them for their size. And yet, tiny but perfectly intelligent and organised, ants are no less than anyone.

We humans are rich or poor only by comparison. A person with two cars and three properties is poorer than somebody with five cars and six properties.  C’mon guys!!  Time to grow up. And never allow or train your children to have comparisons based on their barbie doll, video games and later smartphones. There are many in the world who don’t even have these toys to play with, not even a very old model.

Also, how to know we are smart or dumb?  Who decides that?  An Einstein-like genius will be considered more intelligent than the smartest teacher in the best school around town.  Likewise, even a really smart artist will fall short in front of legends like Picasso.  But for a mother whose child has Autism or Down’s Syndrome, intelligence means her child’s ability to tie shoe laces or pick up a spoon to eat or read basic alphabets. And that’s nothing to be ashamed of.

Never let others decide you are big or small.
Be brave! Be proud of who you are…
When people try to scale you down, just stand tall.

~~~

My post was in response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Scale.”

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