Sometimes the World

There used to be a thing in Science Fiction where they would describe a planet - its size, atmosphere, the sun around which it revolves etc – and the idea was that, at some point, you would realise that the planet being described was OUR world, our Earth. And the realisation would give you a pleasurable little jolt like a conjuring trick or one of those jokes that relies on turning your thinking on its head. Sometimes, the world performs this little trick itself – you become aware that we are insects on the surface of a rapidly spinning rock hurling itself around an immense, blazing fireball which is itself merely one of countless such flickers of light. This shift of perspective cannot last and, before you can examine it, the world is back in its proper place at the centre of everything. The two ways of looking at everything cannot co-exist – you can only toggle between them like the picture that is either two faces in profile or a vase but never both at the same time.