Most people have a pretty good perspective on their local neighborhood and community. When you've lived in a place for awhile, you get a feel for distance to the bank, the grocery store, the local schools and so on. It's a scale your brain handles best.
Some people do pretty well on a sate sized perspective as well. After a few trips, you know what it takes to get from City A to City B. Your brain can make fairly decent images of different regions within a state
A national perspective is a little harder for your brain to sew together into a meaningful whole and even tougher is a global scale. For most people, global is as big a scale as they want to mentally digest. It's a little tougher to get a feel at this level with all our technology - crossing a continent just isn't the same as it used to be, that's for sure.
So that's why I love astronomy. Here's a scale that no mind can wrap itself around. To do astronomy is to do the ultimate brain voyage. "Take a trip and never leave the farm" isn't just a motto for potheads. One night under a dark, clear sky is still the drug of choice for nuts like me. Amen.
