A little hope
A friend sent me a sad reel about baby dinosaurs asking their mother if they were rocks, would she still love them. It then, of course, showed a picture of dino bones trapped inside an excavated rock.
Her reply to the video was that it made her sad.
And yet, the first thing I thought was that they're not rocks. Even trapped inside of rock like they were, the dinosaurs were bones. The same bones that had been inside them from the very beginning of their lives. They hadn't disappeared, no more worth than the dirt they'd died on. Their bones were still there.
More than that, when those bones were found, there would have been a celebration. The people who found them would have been so excited about the discovery that could have potentially changed their lives. It could have made the news. There might be whole research papers dedicated to what those bones meant, what the dinosaurs they're from were and how they lived, or even the scientific study of the bones' makeup. This meant that people living now were better able to support themselves just because the dinosaurs lived however long ago they lived.
Children and adults both would love them. Just the mention of a dinosaur can be enough to send a fan on a tirade about them. Passion inspired by the life of another creature entirely. Some people would pay good money just for the chance to enter the space where they are.
The dinosaurs are dead, but they're loved because they lived. They're celebrated for what we can learn from their simple, unimportant lives. Even though today they're stuck in a rock, they still have value.
