The other night I watched A Trip to Infinity on Netflix. It’s a fascinating and well-made documentary, but gave me both a headache and a momentary existential crisis!
When you see laid out like that just how big the universe is, and what the concept of infinity might mean, it can’t help but make you realise that we are SO SMALL! Just a few billion tiny creatures on a tiny rock in one corner of an enormous universe! And then when you learn about the composition of that universe, you realise that we actually know so little about this huge thing of which we are the smallest and most insignificant part.
Headache and existential crisis both dialled up to 11.
Once I stopped for a while to think, I was left wondering that among all the stuff that we obsess over daily, what on earth is the point of it all? How can such a minute part of everything that exists really matter at all?
Something I think a lot about is how to have a meaningful and positive impact in the world. But what possible meaning could there be to any of my individual actions when I’m part of such a huge and complex system? What difference does any action of mine make in the (very) grand scheme of things?
Then I thought about that famous quote by the tennis legend Arthur Ashe:
“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”
Arthur Ashe
On a macro level, anything I do or don’t do might not matter all that much. But things that I do daily will affect the other people around me. And so I think that to make a positive difference in the world, all we can do is start right where we are. To use the skills, abilities and resources we have to help the people who are nearest to us.
I began to feel calmer.
So then I thought about trying simply to do something kind each day for someone else. Something small, but within my reach witch would, in a tiny way, make someone else’s life that little bit better. Sure, those small acts wouldn’t do much to change the universe as a whole, but they would change that person’s day. And if we all took a similar view, rather than spending time tearing down strangers on social media, wouldn’t the world be a much more positive and happier place?
Maybe that is the point after all? Simply to do my small part in making each day end more positively than it began for someone? Maybe we all need to do that too? There certainly wouldn’t be any harm in it!
And as for that enormous universe beyond the bounds of what we can understand? I guess as we each do our own little bit to make it better, the rest will look after itself.
That’s the best I can come up with for now.
Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash
That Richard Bloke 