The oldest surviving piece of art, the cave painting of a bull, dates back to around 40,000 years ago.

Fourty thousand years ago, someone, presumably a member of a hunter-gatherer tribe, an artist like yourself, painted onto the stone, using red pigment, the image of an animal.

What was its message? Perhaps, “I saw a bull” is all there was to it. Despite the uniqueness of this artifact of our ancestors, it isn’t much of a message at all. You could say it is the first social media post of all time. It has been found on someone’s wall, after all.

40,000 years sounds like a lot of time. And from our perspective, it is. But is it actually? 40,000 years is nothing when you compare it to the age of Earth (4,543,000,000 years) or that of the universe (13,772,000,000 years).

Art has not existed for longer than it exists. And will probably cease existing long before the universe does.

Instead of worrying about the eternal, you can choose to worry about the present. Things that matter to you and those you share this planet with.

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