Mary Schmidt Marketing Troubleshooter

“It isn’t easy to become a fossil.” - Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything

I keep a couple of rocks on my desk. They’re nothing special; I picked them up in my walks around my neighborhood. Tons of them laying around and the Albuquerque area is an ancient seabed, with (I hope) dormant volcanoes. But, looking at what was once was writhing clumps of mud gives me a good whack in the perspective.

All those little critters in my rocks - if not exactly brainy - were once moving, eating, excreting and procreating. And, in terms of world time they were doing it all less than a eye blink ago. The genetic blueprints for everything from a lichen to Cameron Diaz came out of just such clumps. Our economy would come to a screeching halt if it wasn’t for a whole bunch of very dead dinos and plants. Further, as Bryson notes, the fate of nearly all living organisms - over 99.9% of them - is to compost down to nothinginess. So, my “nothing special” rocks are actually downright miraculous.

My perspective: We’re surrounded by miracles (if we just look); we’ve got a lot more in common than not, with everything in our world, even telemarketers, lawyers and politicians And, finally, this too (good or bad) will pass.

I’ll write something more “business-like” later. In the meantime, have a good one!

Read more: Albuquerque area geology, New Mexico’s Fossils, Burgess Shale fossils, Digging Dinosaurs, Fossil Fuels, and Geologic Time Line, Paleontology Portal