“There are more stars than there are people. Billions, Alan had said, and millions of them might have planets just as good as ours. Ever since I can remember, I’ve felt too big. But now I felt small. Too small. Too small to count. Every star is massive, but there are so many of them. How could anyone care about one star when there were so many spare? And what if stars were small? What if all the stars were just pixels? And earth was less than a pixel? What does that make us? And what does that make me? Not even dust. I felt tiny. For the first time in my life I felt too small.”
Frank Cottrell Boyce, Cosmic
It’s a funny thing, becoming aware of your own insignificance. It goes against the very egocentric formatting of our human minds; it is quite a painful realization, and an even more painful acceptance. I sit with my thoughts at 3am, the dark surrounding me aside from the static hue from the television that I don’t want to get up and turn off. I’m going through my phase of not being able to sleep, and so I sit. I try to read, I try to watch tv, but my thoughts are so loud that they prevent escape. And so I just lie there with the buzzing in my head.
I am but a face in the crowd. I am just tip toeing my way around the same tap dance that we all are taking part of. It is a long one, if we are lucky, but seems to be over in an instant. There is nothing special about me; I will not change the world or save a life, nor will I ruin one. I always thought that I would be someone important, or that at the very least, I would do something important. I thought I would change something, be something, do something. There is a story inside of me that yearns to be told … and yet, there is always something blocking it from setting free. Perhaps it is the fear; fear that I will bare my soul and that it will be for nothing. After all, who am I? I am no one. No one to you. Why would anything I do matter?
The sky is so big, yet sometimes seems so small. My world is caving in and crumbling because I have allowed it to shrink. Once upon a time, it was endless. There were no borders to my world because there were no limits to what I believed I could do. Now, the borders are clear and the borders are so very close. I have trapped myself in, believing in my own insignificance so much that I have given up on most every dream. I want to blame everyone else, but in reality, it is me that locked me in. It is me. Not the stars.
Is it wrong to believe you mean something? To believe that you are of some worth in the bigger picture? I ask because I truly want the opinion of others, and I ask because I desperately need to know if I must doom myself with this belief of insignificance forever. The world is so cold, so ugly, so cruel, and my heart aches for all of its victims all day, everyday … but is it so bad to distract oneself from all of that wrong for awhile?
I want my world to be big again. I want to mean something to someone.
–
Thank you Weirdo, for the answer & for being a star in my sky – When Perspective Matters
:sighs: It’s awesome – your writing, even when you’re writing about insignificance… I wish I could half-write or even quarter-write the way you do… :more sighs:
I wish I shared the same views, but thank you nonetheless
Reblogged this on Seeing It Then and Now.
thank you
I have to say I was struck by what you said regarding “I will not save a life, nor will I ruin one.” There is nothing insignificant in being someone in this world destined NOT to ruin a life. In my mind, that is just as significant — perhaps even more so in a world where so many are willing to hurt others — as someone who will save a life. So your place — tour significance — is duly noted and appreciated, Erica
Thanks, Ned. After feeling that I had ruined someone long ago, I made a decision to never hurt a person like that again. I guess there could be significance in that, now that you’ve shared your perspective.
The smallest things can have the greatest effect and become the most important things in the world to many. You positively affect the world around you every time you put up a post that makes someone smile, think, laugh or cry. The ability to brighten the day of someone you have never met every time you click publish is no small thing and far from insignificant! That example is just using this blog, I have no doubt that the effect you have on those you are around in person is far more treasured (if that’s possible).
Well, thank you … even if I don’t (or rather ‘can’t') fully agree. I want to see the impact I make, maybe one day…
I relate to this so much, when i was younger i thought I could be anyone and do anything especially around age 18-19. At that age if someone would of told me I couldn’t do something i wouldn’t of believed them but nowadays I can think of 500 reasons why i can’t do this or be that. Most days i want that feeling of being un-stoppable back, it made life so much fun and so colorful and sometimes I convince myself that I can do or be anything but it doesn’t last long.
I think everyone in the world feels insignificant to some degree unless their famous and that’s like .001% of the world’s population but we talk and think about famous people so much that it makes you feel like anyone who is anyone is famous but I’m not so sure alot of famous people are significant. Look at all the reality stars today- what do they actually do?!
Don’t feel guilty for looking away from the worlds pain, you need to recharge your batteries to survive and the world and it’s pain will still be there when you look back.
You’re not insignificant to me, at all!
Thank you. You always know exactly what to say.
I wrote a post for you, mate.
Rockin my world, as usual.
I hear what you are saying on many levels. I think what is important is that the person you need to mean something to is yourself. That is what I have found to be true time and again. I have tried to rely on other people and for whatever reason, in my life, it has rarely worked out. So I have learned that the person I can always rely on is myself. It’s like the thought you have to love yourself before you can love someone else. It is always nice to get validation from other people, I know. But I think it is just as important to be able to stand tall even when there is no external validation. People will sense that confidence and it is magnetic. Find your dreams again. They are still there. Believe in them and yourself and you will always be ok.
How right you are; which is why I made the decision last year to not get into another relationship until I could be important to myself. I’m still working on it.
Thank you.
You’re not insignificant to me. You brightened my day yesterday with a little card in my mail, all the way from the other side of the world
But I know how you feel. I remember when I was a kid, still a Christian but beginning to learn enough about science to be on my way to atheism. I remember sheer terror at the idea that the universe was so big, and that before it came to be there was likely to have been literally nothing. It still scares me if I think too long about it. And on top of that the sheer size of the universe, and my smallness in it, and my realisation that I am only truly real to ME, in my mind, as is everyone else only real to themselves, made me SO scared. Is this all real? Or just some sort of projection? If it isn’t real, WTF…and if it is real, clearly my existence is nothing in the grand scheme of things.
I have learnt though that these fears mean one thing, and one thing only:
We are smarter and more open to knowledge and truth than more than half the population. Even if it boggles our minds and messes with our sense of self it is something to be proud of. We think about these things therefore we are wise
Hmmm, I never thought about it that way! Maybe we are the wise ones
You’re not insignificant – you’ve already changed the world through you’re wonderful blog and lovely personality!
It is scary to think that the history of the entire human race are would only count as the last three seconds on clock of the time of life on earth though. Perhaps each of us is an evolved cell, and human civilisation is actually one big organism? Who knows! 
Woah, what a thought!
You matter to me.
That means something to me, thank you.
Distractions are OK (I think)… as long as we are aware they are that… distractions… and as long as we apply these in moderation… then what is left is to direct them…
in terms of the universe, we may feel insignificant… yes… but hey, I think that’s OK… I mean I wouldn’t really want to be ‘significant’ in terms of the whole universe… way too much… I can barely handle being significant to myself…
yet, also in terms of the universe, I believe that we are each of immense significance… just as a child is to its parent, or husband to wife, or vine to winemaker, or that special bloom to gardener…
otherwise… if the flutter of a butterfly wing can cause a hurricane halfway around the world, how can you possibly be insignificant (in any way)?
M
You’re right. So right, as you always seem to be.
It seems that their are many meanings to life, most of which are based upon the effects that a person’s actions have on other people. Whatever gives us a robust feeling of fulfillment and satisfaction is the meaning of life for that person.
I’m so sorry that you are experiencing that gut wrenching emptiness.
I had that same incapacitation for years, although very much better now.
Glad you are better now, hopefully I’ll get there.
I know this will sound strange, but I always take some comfort in my own insignificance. I have two posters of space on my walls (one of the galaxy from the side and the other of the stars) in order to remind me of my insignificance. It means even if I have an argument with someone, do badly on a piece of work, it reminds me just how little it matters to the universe.
You know, that is actually a beautiful way to look at it … I get so caught up in the negative parts, I forget all this!
Thank you
“la vie est belle” my friend. hang in there.
Hello! Your write-up rocks also as getting a respectable great realize!??