Insignificance
“What would you like to
drink?” asks the flight attendant for the 5th time. I try to change
the beverage every time but now I just want water, we are going to land soon. I
look out the window and see all the tiny sky scrapers, the cars, and the people
invisible unless in crowds. Looking down from the plane, the houses are
transformed into doll houses and the cars into tiny matchbox cars. Is this what
the world is? Just a tiny sphere where no one can really make a difference?
Whenever I’m in planes I’m filled with excitement and dread every time I look
out the window because it reminds me of how little I am in this sizeable world.
We are surrounded by people we know and in a town like Urbana-Champaign, it
appears that you know everyone and everyone knows you. It is impossible to
disappear into a crowd, but this allows for a tighter knit society. In a city
like Chicago for example, it is more likely that you will meet no one that you
know, than meeting one person that you have met before. It is easy to disappear
in such an enormous city, but the people you do meet will be significant to
your life.
Every time I meet someone new I’m amazed that I have never met them before or that I met them at all. We interact with about 80,000 people in an average lifetime. This statistic is for cities, so many people won’t even have this number of encounters. Now remember that there are 7.4 billion people that you could possibly meet, and you only meet .008 percent of that population. When we meet people, they become part of the 80,000. It’s incredible that we encounter these people but not others. Every time you meet someone new, you are also not meeting someone else, who could have contributed to those 80,000 encounters.
One encounter can be
enough to change history. If the founding fathers had never joined together, to
write the constitution, we would have a different form of government. If Hitler
had been accepted into art school, would WWII have occurred? We are probably
changing small details of the future with every decision we make. Do these
small decision matter for the future or will they just change small details? I
sometimes think of our lives as if every person had their own novel and they
get to tell their story. The main character of the book is always you and the
reader perceives the world through you. We are a small part of a larger world
but the decisions we make will still impact our society in the future.
This is a really interesting post on something I feel like a lot of us have experienced. Even on a smaller scale than going on a plane or overseas, I get this feeling when I go to somewhere like Walmart and see kids my age I've never met. I somehow have it in my head that I've seen every teenager in Champaign-Urbana. I forget there are other schools right nearby me besides Central, Urbana, Centennial, and Uni, like I see Unity kids all the time around Savoy. It's also weird hearing about their lives, because you suddenly realize there are people who experience things beyond your very limited realm of life. This is a particularly pretentious and privileged example, but people from other schools are proud of graduating and getting into college, whereas here it's dependent on what grades you get when you graduate and what college you get into. It's really interesting and really weird and you laid that out well.
ReplyDeleteThe idea that you pursued in the first paragraph while looking out the window of an airplane really fascinates me. If you dread every time you look out the window because it reminds you of your insignificance, what about your presence in the Universe? In the scale of the Universe, none of your decisions or actions matter. You're practically nonexistent. The course of the universe will carry out regardless of your existence. Anyways, this was a really interesting topic to write your post on and I really enjoyed reading it!
ReplyDeleteIn reference to the first paragraph, I feel the exact opposite way. When I am above smaller towns in an aircraft, I don't look down and just see one large mass. I try to pick out single cars, maybe someone driving particularly fast or slow, and put a story to them. That minivan that's passing every other car on the highway? It's not just another minivan. That's a single father, rushing his 3 kids to their doctor appointment. That car driving too slow to be on the road? That's a grandmother. She's 90 now, and probably shouldn't be driving because of her vision, but she's going to visit her grandchildren for the first time in ages. I think that when we think of everybody as a unique and special person, rather than just a statistic, it makes us more human ourselves.
ReplyDeleteI love this post! Your introduction reminded me of an experience I had a week ago, flying back from California during fall break. As the plane flew over Champaign-Urbana, I was mind-blown at how small our town looked, like a patch of town surrounded in all directions by a sea of cornfields. It was an interesting realization because it doesn’t feel very small. It made me feel like I should know everyone who lives here!
ReplyDeleteI've also zoomed out of Champaign-Urbana and seen our small hustling and bustling town surrounded by numerous squares of green, brown, and yellow, with roads streaking across the screen to other small towns like Philo and Mahomet. It's pretty weird, and that's just in the state of Illinois! When I grow up I'm going to hope to meet as many people as possible outside of where I grew up. I can't look outside of airplane windows though since it makes me really airsick.
ReplyDeleteWow this was really good. Your use of statistics and numbers really helped me put everything into perspective. I like how this post flowed like a conversation. Also, I reeeeallly liked your use of the examples in the last paragraph. The "art school" point makes me realize how all of our decisions can change the future in a small or large way.
ReplyDelete