Cosmos

​Cosmos
I am a bit of a bottom-line man.  I guess ending up in finance makes sense in that light.   It was totally weird though.  There were three of us at school that did ancient history instead of maths.  We all ended up in jobs where maths played a big part in what we did (one even ended up tutoring maths).
I did love ancient history, but I did have one regret.  I wish that Hannibal had have beaten the Romans.  But he didn’t and I cannot change that.  In an ancient history assignment I put “I could go on and on.”  The teachers comment in the side was “you do, you do.”  I guess I was told.
I was reminded of the bottom-line stuff by the words “In the light of a dying sun.”  It sent me googling “How long has our sun got.”  The answer was so direct it made me wonder “you talkin to me?”  Five billion years.  July 19, 8.27am.  Ok I added the July 19, 8.27am.
But it did say our sun would burn itself out in five billion years.  I reckon I will be gone by the time it happens.  It actually painted a fairly dismal picture.  “As you know, our Sun has a limited lifespan. Over the next 5 billion years, it will burn the last of its hydrogen, bloat up as a red giant and consume Mercury and Venus. This would be totally disastrous for local flora and fauna, but all life on the surface of the Earth will already be long gone.”  I think there was a bit of an assumption there with the “As you know.”  Maybe I did not know.  It didn’t know what I knew.  I hope it didn’t anyway.  Otherwise I would be thinking “the computer knows too much.”
I ask myself “why does that matter?”  It really does not to me if I am not around.  A lot can happen in five billion years.  Here is where the bottom-line stuff kicks in for me.  I reckon it is right and proper that we endeavour to make our planet liveable for ourselves and future generations.  I am glad they are sending probes into space in the hope of diverting an asteroid that may head for earth.
A lot can happen in five billion years.  The thinking seems to be that maybe the human race could have left our solar system by then.  I cannot help thinking what was being talked about on tv may come into play.  Someone was saying what many are saying.  The rich are getting richer and the poor poorer.  Escaping the solar system may depend on being rich.  Like the rich Russian in the movie 2012.  In that movie the gates were open to let others escape.  There is no guarantee of that.  I would recommend a plan B.
This would all be done for the kids though with the nearest solar system being 4.37 light years away.  Then it all has to go right.  The ship could crash on landing.  Oh well.  We gave it a shot.
Then again, we may not have as much time as we thought.  The Milky Way is predicted to collide with Andromeda in two billion years according to one study.  Five billion years becomes two.  Time goes so fast.
All this highlights on a cosmic scale what I feel on an individual scale.  I can become the wealthiest most influential person in the world.  But when I am dead, I am dead.  My hope is in something greater that what I see before me.