Important, Not Important

I think about time a lot. Some days I feel ancient, some days I can’t believe how old I am.I’ve got kids, too. I can’t believe how fast they’ve grown up already. They love so many things. Swimming. Cooking. Plain pasta. The beach. Vegetables, somehow. Their friends. Their family. Dinosaurs.Man, oh man, do they love dinosaurs.I love to challenge them, to help them think about how long ago it all was, and how long it lasted. How different the world was. How the land under their feet was an ocean, once.And of course, knowing what we know now, how fast it can all change. How an asteroid - or a virus, or a fire, or a flood - can change your life forever.I try to help them understand that, unlike the dinosaurs, we have the tools to prevent many of these things, and we have the foresight to understand when and how, and why they might happen.As much progress as we’ve made in these 300,000 years of Homo sapiens, from fire to wheels to meat to agriculture to handwashing –  we are in a moment when we are challenged