Infinitive Splitter

I am most of the way through Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, the middle of which describes a number of probable, unpreventable events that would kill all of us very quickly (asteroids, solar flares, volcanic eruptions, toxic gas emissions, and so on, to say nothing of more gradual calamities like viral outbreaks or carbon imbalances or antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogens).

On the way home from work the other day, I read a particularly vivid section that discussed the unsettling frequency with which the Earth nearly misses collisions with "asteroids big enough to imperil civilized existence" (several times a week, probably); the speed at which they would hit us (so fast that the air under them could not get out of the way); and the amount of warning we might have ahead of time (a little less than a second, if you happened to be looking up at the right moment).

I read that, then wrote this:

It is difficult to read about the very likely end of the world and in the next moment work up any real concern about the sort of trivial disputes and contrived rivalries that have tended to punctuate the various episodes of my life.  Existence is fleeting — wildy, unpredictably so — and there's little reason to dwell on ultimately inconsequential hiccups.

A bit of big-picture context is always helpful.