Humans have been around an incredibly short period of time, cosmically speaking. 200,000 years, compared to 4.6 billion for Earth and 13.8 billion for the universe. Civilization has been around an even shorter time. Science, shorter still. And yet we’ve completely taken over the planet. And not in a good way, obviously.

It just never ceases to amaze me how we think we’re so important and permanent, when we’re really completely insignificant and most likely temporary. Dinosaurs were around for hundreds of millions of years, and they’d kick our asses if we had to compete with them.

We look at how we’ve put our stamp on the planet, the endless masses of houses and buildings and highways and bridges, and we think it’ll be around forever. It won’t.

I guess the sad part is, some of the stuff we’ve created probably will be around forever, or at least a really long time. Man-made elements like Strontium-90. From nuclear weapons, of course, because we’ve never been able to just get along with each other. And all the artificial shit we’ve created that won’t biodegrade, like Styrofoam. It’s hard not to see the Earth eventually looking as it does in Wall-E. Just man-made trash as far as the eye can see. Great legacy, huh?

Our primitive human brains just can’t comprehend the timescales of the universe, or evolution, or anything beyond our tiny lifetimes. We act like nothing came before us and nothing will come after. As Calvin observed in Calvin and Hobbes, we evolved as thoughtless, shortsighted creatures.

One wonders if other intelligent life forms out there, assuming they exist, would be any better. Maybe once you achieve consciousness, develop tools, get out of the food chain, have no natural predators, you just become a destructive species. We like to think that there’s some benevolent enlightened alien race out there that would put us to shame, but maybe not. Maybe they’re just as destructive and dumb as us. Hard to imagine, but could be the case.

None of us will live long enough to know if we end up turning things around. If we turn the tide of climate change. If we start giving land back to the other animals on this planet. If we stop hating each other over stupid shit. If we manage to make it to other planets. If we discover other life in the universe. If we make contact with another intelligent species.

It’s kind of a bummer, that we’ll shuffle off this mortal coil before we get answers to any of these questions. And given the incomprehensible size of the cosmos and the limits of our feeble brains, plus how we seem to be bent on wiping ourselves out, we’ll probably never get answers to some of them.

But such is life. We’re born without asking to be here, we’re here for a little while, and then we leave, not knowing if anything comes after. All we can do is make the most of the time we have here. Try to be kind. Try to enjoy life even with all the hardships, even though it makes no sense. Try to do some good.

So yeah. That’s all I got for now.

The older I get, the more I wonder what the point of it all is.

You don't really wonder about the point of existence when you're a kid. At least I didn't. I just kind of accepted the world around me.

For a while, I got to experience a little bubble of innocence. I was wonderfully oblivious to the suffering inherent in human existence. I hadn't yet been weighed down with the baggage that years of hardship and pain would eventually summon. I wasn't yet burdened with the unrelenting demands of adulthood - "you're a slave to the money then you die," to quoth The Verve.

Perhaps it's the fact that I'm looking to change jobs for the 4th time in 28 months that's got me feeling contemplative. It'll be on to another job soon, hopefully. But then what? Will I ever feel fulfilled? Happy? Do these things even really exist? Perhaps that's why Jefferson (if I'm remembering history correctly) wrote of the pursuit of happiness, and not just happiness (I ripped that off from the Will Smith movie, but whatevs).

Could also be the fact that I'm now basically suffering from full-blown OCD. This in addition to the Ehler-Danlos, Lyme, and PTSD. What's one more cross to bear, I suppose.

I always feel kinda guilty venting about my problems, because I know there are billions of people living through famine and poverty and terror. So many people in this world lead lives of desperation and don't know if they'll make it through the night. My issues, legitimate as they are, seem trivial compared to their plight.

By the same token, though, I think it's OK for me to express these things. I'm only human, after all. I'm not comparing my life to anyone else's. I'll never claim that I have it the worst. But objectively, I think any reasonable outside observer, if they knew the full story of my life, would say "damn, man - you've been through some hard shit."

At times I feel like our daily routines, the endless cycle of wake, work, sleep, repeat, the little things we do to try to give ourselves some pleasure...it's all just a big distraction from the painful truth that life is bizarre, the world is fucked up, and it's all fleeting.

I was a reading a book by Sam Harris once, and he quoted someone (philosopher, I think) who said that life is a struggle to reconcile 2 irrefutable truths: none of us asked to be born, and we all have to die. I think that sums it up pretty well.

So, anyway...that's my deep thought on this Friday night. Just sending into the void here on FA. Hope y'all are doing OK. Do something nice for yourselves and keep it real.

I've only started embracing my furry-ness for the last few months, but even in that short time I learned that "Robin Hood" is legendary in the fandom. I'm a sucker for animation in general and talking animal movies in particular, so it was a natural choice. I finally watched it this weekend and wow - did not disappoint.

Absolutely love the character designs and variety of critters. Robin and Maid Marian are cute as can be, of course, but also love Skippy and the church mice. Superb voice acting, especially Roger Miller as Alan-a-Dale and Pat Buttram's Sheriff of Nottingham. And that musical interlude with Robin and Marian? Cripes, thought I was gonna start crying like a baby. So friggin beautiful.

There's something really special about the pacing and atmosphere in Disney movies from this era. It's not constant noise and stimulation like today's movies, even the good ones. There's a lot of quiet moments. They allow scenes to move at a leisurely pace and fully develop. Sometimes characters will be moving around a lot, but all the viewer hears is the score. I love that. It gives these movies such a warmth and coziness. It reminded me a lot of 101 Dalmatians, a movie I grew up with that's still close to my heart.

Aside from "steal from the rich, give to the poor" catchphrase, I don't really know anything about the Robin Hood legend. So it was pretty cool getting a little intro in anthro form.

And I have to say, it's really fun seeing some slapstick humor, innuendo, and insults that probably wouldn't fly in today's hyper-P.C. world (the guard whistling at an incognito Little John's ass made me burst out laughing). And I say that as a dyed-in-the-wool progressive. I think most people would admit we've gone a little too far trying to offend no one ever. Some people (looking at you, my fellow millennials) need to learn the difference between good-natured jokes and thing that are actually offensive.

And a movie with a vain, narcissistic, power-hungry, infantile ruler as its villain...well, I think you can see why that's relevant in 2018. Sadly.

All in all, a wonderful film that was really fun to watch. Even better, it sparked my artistic side, so I'll probably be posting some RH-inspired art in the near future.