“I’m Significant,” Screamed the Dust Speck
It’s not enough to just be a human and do human things. We don’t just eat food; we take pictures of it and share them online. If we didn’t – if no one saw our plate of aesthetically arranged potatoes – it might as well have not existed. Our experiences only matter if they are preserved, witnessed, and affirmed.
The problem is they are never witnessed by many people and affirmed by even less. We post a video and it gets a dozen views, while someone else’s gets over a million. We busk in the park and no one stops to listen while Bruce Springsteen sells out Madison Square Garden. Our lives are terribly small and insignificant in the shadow of rock stars, celebrities, and fifteen year olds on TikTok.
Growing up, we were taught to admire the best in the world: quarterbacks, movie stars, presidents, and CEOs, depending on the value system of the house. These were our heroes and if we dreamed hard enough and worked hard enough, we could become them. Any failure or loss was just a temporary obstacle on the way to inevitable success. Up and up. But it’s not true, and eventually we are forced to come to terms with the fact that our life isn’t going to be big or beautiful like we dreamed. It’s going to continue to be what it is: common, fragile, painful, and small. The failure is not leading to success; it’s just leading to more failure. And we get to live it while watching other people live the life we want.
At least, we think it’s what we want. It’s worth noting that the lives we think are big appear far less beautiful and meaningful when viewed from the inside. Marilyn Monroe said, “I’m not just generally happy. If I’m generally anything, I guess I’m generally miserable.” Pick a currency – fame, money, power, beauty, impact. One can never obtain or retain enough of it to make up for the bleak nature of the human experience. Those precious few who make it to the top of their profession are always telling us this. They win Super Bowls and Academy Awards and if they’re honest, they say it’s not what they thought it would be.
Those whose lives are smaller and worse off than mine may think my life is more significant than theirs just as I look at Springsteen and think that of him. But if any of us exchanged places, we’d see the hunger for significance goes wherever we go at whatever level we operate. External factors are never enough. In the cosmic sense, all of our lives are infinitesimally small and short, and whether they happen to be slightly bigger than someone else’s is irrelevant.
“Common people are only a vapor; important people, an illusion. Together on a scale, they weigh less than a vapor.”*
What if there is no actual hierarchy? In her memoirs, Patti Smith writes about cafe owners, outlaws, and obscure scientists with the same honor and humanity she sees in Brian Jones and Andy Warhol. She sees people for the art in their souls rather than their social status. God does the same: “Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”**
We are all short-lived humans on a rock hurtling through space. If we try to earn significance through achievement, we will only be frustrated or disillusioned. The question is not how do we make our lives big, but how do we find significance within the small life we have?
I don’t know the answer to that.
I don’t believe the old way anymore, but I don’t know the new way. I don’t know how to see things as Patti Smith or God sees them, to see things as they really are. There are always multiple perspectives, and who’s to say which is right? Was Jack Kerouac a romantic bohemian poet or a broke alcoholic bum? Are we doing our best or failing to live up to our potential?
Maybe both. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe it doesn’t matter if we’re all significant, or all insignificant, or if Bruce Springsteen is more significant than us. We’ve been given a job to do and whether it is big or small or how it compares to someone else’s is irrelevant. Our job is to do it. Maybe it’s enough to just be a human and do human things.
J.
Note: The cultured reader will recognize the handiwork of Bill Watterson in the title.
*Psalm 62:9
**1 Samuel 16:7
Feb. 6, 2024