How often do you think about how small or big we really are?
I think about it when I’m looking at tiny little bugs, or looking up at the stars. Or sometimes when I get way too far into an introspective thought, it becomes existential really fast.
Personally, I was diagnosed with severe anxiety and depression at 17, as soon as I moved out of home. Money and life just weren’t stable enough to speak to a professional about unpacking where that all came from, so naturally I turned to a number of other vices I found for myself. (For those curious, mostly this was; seeking attention and love in the form of back-to-back relationships, drinking myself nearly into a coma, being reckless with my feelings, behaving very immaturely in online games, and eventually turning to spiritual beliefs, rituals, and pretty rocks.)
Among all the extra trauma I exposed myself to from the ages of 18-24, I did start my own therapeutic journey in there somewhere. Of course at the time I thought I was already healed (ha-ha), and doing really well, until I’d find myself in another situation asking how on earth it had all come to this.
One time, living in a rented bedroom in a house full of people I never saw or spoke to, I had a bit of a lucky roll. Well it started out really unlucky actually. In one day I had lost my job as a waitress, and received notice that I would have to leave the rented room within two weeks, because the landlord was moving back in.
I broke down at the time because my job and ‘home’ were the only things I had to show for myself since leaving my parents. For a week I took resumes to every restaurant I could find, and applied for every rental.
I drove really far, to try and calm down, and stopped at a small crystal-shop I’d go to often. I found this little mystical-looking spinning device, and thought it felt right. I got myself some nice incense, and more rocks (with little pieces of paper that told me they would bring fortune in money and success).
When I got home I knelt down on my floor and prayed to something – I am still to decide exactly what it is, besides some driving force of the universe – for a new job and a new home. I lit my incense, lined my rocks up in a pretty little configuration, then held the spinning device to my forehead and visualised my wish going into it. With my eyes closed I spun it around and imagined my wish was being shot out of all the sides to something that might listen and grant them.
And for some reason, it worked. No more than an hour later I had a call back from a restaurant that I could start tomorrow, and my friend from school reached out to ask if I’d like to share a rental with him.
As you can imagine this launched me down a bit of a spiritual journey, trying to decide what it was that I believed in. To this day I will just tell you that I believe in something, and I believe everyone in the world is describing it whether they mean to or not. I think there’s a force driving things to occur in a certain way. Whether it’s a figure called God, Buddha, or Allah, or a karmic balance, or quantum physics we don’t understand yet. I think it’s as fundamental a rule as gravity, we just don’t have the equation or expression for it yet (or maybe ever).
Anyway I’ve gone pretty far off topic. I think it’s absolutely bizarre that we contemplate these things at all. And sometimes I can’t help but remember that we’re just animals. Really no different from a monkey or a cat, but our brains are what evolved instead of fancy vision or a tail.
I think about how caught up we all get in deciding what’s right and what’s wrong. And who gets to decide? And why them?
But when I look at an ant, I feel enormous. I feel like I am the size of the universe, and I could fundamentally change that ants life forever, and it wouldn’t even understand it. I could surround it in a mote of water. It would never comprehend the idea that something has done this to it. It would just look around and see water, and know this is a problem. It would probably panic (if ants panic).
(I also would never do this to an ant, because I think that’s inherently cruel.)
But what if that ant started spelling out words with the dirt? What if I looked down and it had written “WHY”. I might feel inclined to give the poor thing a break, and break the mote with a little bridge, and send him on his way.
And the reason would just be… Because I have the power to do that. Why wouldn’t I?
I have so much power that this tiny speck could never even fathom. If it spelled out “FOOD” I would probably lead him to a pile of delicious snacks to feed his whole colony.
Now what if I’m the ant? Because when I look up at the sky, at all the stars that are all suns in their own right, and imagine all the planets out there – I am suddenly very, very small. I am just another life form that formed on this earth along with the other animals.
My vision is limited. My knowledge is limited. And what if there is something that my field of view just can’t comprehend? Or maybe my retinas have not evolved to see?
Maybe there’s some totally incomprehensible 6th dimensional being the size of the entire universe just playing with lives out of pure boredom. Granting wishes just because it’s so easy for it to do so.
See now that makes me think what would this alien think of what I’ve done with my granted wish? If I wasted it’s time and energy would it even care? Or maybe it thinks I’m very, very stupid (which I definitely am sometimes), and smite me down. But then, I would never do that to the ant. It’s just doing what it knows, with it’s limited point of view. Now I’m laughing at the idea of an ant writing a blog about it’s existential thoughts.
Now all of this considered – when the universe is so big and limitless in a way – why the fuck would we be wasting our precious time and energy with capitalism and politics?
But that’s another very deep rabbit hole and I’ve exhausted all the energy I have for now. Watch this space though, because I have opinions.