Cosmic Insignificance
How odd, that when I put too much thought into writing, my hands refuse to produce anything.
Somehow, I got it into my mind that what I write has to be exceptional in order to deserve being posted… As if anyone is reading this. I’m essentially yelling into a void, and yet my mind is censoring and trying to stop me.
It does this to prevent shame, embarrassment, and to protect us from failure, and it’s damn good at it. Cause if we knew it was making us quit, we’d fight back.
So instead, it makes us quit in such a way that we believe the excuses it gives us, and we convince ourselves we’re giving up because we want to.
But what if I wasn’t posting my work to almost zero audience? What if tens of millions of people read every post? Should that really make such a difference? I mean, I’m nobody. I’m a speck in a near infinite universe. Less than that. No more significant to the universe than an amoeba is to us.
I could be the most famous writer of this century, and I still wouldn’t be THAT important to the majority of people. Even less so in 1,000 years. And what about in a few million?
I sometimes remind myself that eventually, our sun will die, and if humanity hasn’t found a suitable place to live by then—and the means to get there—our entire solar system will be swallowed up, destroyed, forgotten... along with all of human history.
In a long enough time horizon, the destruction of our galaxy is inevitable... and yet I’m worried about whether someone likes my writing? Whether or not I missed a typo, or used an em dash wrong.
Ironically, the seemingly depressing notion of our cosmic insignificance is one of the best arguments for authenticity. If no one is going to care in 100 years, let alone 1,000... Well why NOT be ourselves? Why not live authentically?
I mean, don’t do anything drastic and stupid enough to make your short stay here miserable.
But also,
Don’t live so much to other people’s whims, in fear of their judgement, that at the end you feel as if you never lived at all.