We're just a speck in the universe.
(Reuters/Navesh Chitrakar)
We all experience the world like we are at the center of reality.
We think and we feel in relation to how our senses absorb information and how this information mingles with our personal memories. The subjective perception created by these interactions provides the illusion of importance.
We forget that this perception only exists in our minds and that everyone near us is walking around under exactly the same psychological mindset.
In truth, we’re just one of billions, and over the course of history, everything about us is insignificant. Even people like Newton and Einstein, who we revere for their contributions to humanity, are only slightly less insignificant.
Our universe contains one septillion stars (a one followed by 24 zeroes) and a lot of these stars contain many, many more modes of dust that we call planets. If any of us ceased to exist tomorrow, little would change beyond the subjective emotional states of the people in our immediate circles.
Earth would continue its orbit, and the laws of physics would remain in tact. We’re nothing more than a fraction of a ripple in an infinite sea of entropy.
Many of us don’t like hearing this. It conflicts with the story our mind tells.
We’re brought up to think that we’re special, and we like believing it. But I don’t say any of this as a cynic or to depress you. In fact, quite the opposite. I say it because distinguishing between our subjective perception and the objective reality is the key to living a meaningful and important life.
Acknowledging unimportance liberates us from the grips of the self-centered voice in our head that’s chiefly responsible for many of life’s difficulties.
It’s the voice that compares us to people that don’t matter, it’s the same voice that convinces us that we’re entitled to a comfortable and easy life, and it’s indeed this voice that has us chasing arbitrary measures of success.
And the result?
We spend our time acquiring things we don’t want or need, we falter at the first sign of hardship and inconvenience, and one day, we wake up to a ticking clock realizing that, all this time, we’ve lived somebody else’s life.
The surest way to be unfilled is to walk around like you hold some sort of a privileged position in the universe. It’s not only a completely false and harmful illusion, but it also overlooks the fringe benefits of being a nobody.
I’d like to walk you through them.
1. Being a nobody allows us to truly experience and appreciate the profoundness of the sublime
In 1757, Edmund Burke published one of the most influential works in aesthetics. It’s a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty.
In it, he separated sensory experiences into “the beautiful” and “the sublime.”
We’re all familiar with “the beautiful.” It can be summarized by the standard definition. We see it every day in the things we find stunning and pleasant. “The sublime,” however, is different. It’s more than just visually enticing. It’s overwhelming. It makes us feel small, and it has the power to engulf us.
It’s found when we are in awe at the might of nature, it’s experienced in the emotion of love, and it’s discovered when we are compelled by a great work of art. It’s a heightened sense of existence beyond comfort and normalcy.
To fully indulge in the sublime, we have to give up a part of ourselves. We are forced to accept a degree of inferiority for a connection to something greater. The risk of vulnerability is balanced by the reward of ecstasy.
No one is immune from experiencing this wonder, but an ego and a deep sense of personal importance get in the way. They seek ecstasy without accepting vulnerability, and they then find themselves cornered with fear.
There is nothing desirable about it. It leads to a kind of paralysis that steals the potential of experiencing some of the great joys in life. It may be masked with humor or rationality, but in truth, it’s nothing more than insecurity.
Being a nobody, you don’t have this problem. You accept that you’re already naked, so you may as well put it on display to try and gain something.
