I am not speaking of fish scales here, even though they are interesting in their own right. I am not speaking of weigh scales like one might find in a bathroom, a hardware store, a grain elevator or an interstate checkpoint for big trucks. They are all interesting.
I am speaking about the utterly incomprehensible levels of scaling that exists from the sub-atomic to atomic to molecular to multi-molecular to cellular to tissues to organs to bodies to social networks to communities to regions to archipelagos to islands to continents and oceans to planets to solar systems to galaxies to universes. None of these thoughts are new for anyone really, but on certain days I look out the window at work thinking of the people scurrying around, the big cranes rotating, horns beeping, birds swooping, clouds evolving and the sun heating, and think just how complex the system of existence is, even as a physical system, even in a small corner of it. And, then when one adds in the other more intangible dimensions of spiritual, astronomical, geological, natural and synthetic alterations ongoing, it simply blows the mind.
Why is this a worthwhile reflection….for me because it reminds us of our smallness, our tiny roles in big pictures, our finite times and spaces, or little wiggle of the “needle” of being. It helps one to recall in capital letters the word HUMILITY, and it makes some of the behaviour we see in person or on electronic media seem like such a childish facet of a big world where we need to use our split-seconds of time for more good, more kindness.
When one looks at scales, we are neither the most fascinating of the small or the large. We are just in between. We are fortunate but should stop thinking so often that we are exceptional.