Opting out of time

rejecting insignificance has its appeal but...

For a too long amount of time I was on a quest to write an amazing first post that grabbed everyone’s attention and set the ‘right tone'‘ for my substack, drawing in interest like the back side of fan. Then I stopped ignoring the possibility that no one will read this post and thus its significance may be mounted on a straw house on a huffy puffy day.

Feeling insignificant is something we fret over both in the present (am I important to the world now?) and wonder toward the future whether if, when we die, we’ll be a candle flame extinguished all at once or, like its scent, linger in the air a little longer.

In this Freya India Post I saw, for the first time, pictures of girls “posing” on the train tracks leading to Auschwitz. The post discusses the ease with which social media can turn us into self-absorbed, aloof, shallow ends of the pool, which is spot-on IMO. But I think what’s also happening is online life is severing people from a healthy connection with time and history. Though we’re more “connected” than ever loneliness seems to be on the rise. Some likely culprits are less IRL interactions and less emotional bonding, particularly for women. But perhaps it’s also that while people are freezing all these moments that will “live” indefinitely what it’s also doing is forming a wall between us and Time’s habit of treating everyone the same. Not with compassion or malice, just stubborn indifference. The Instagram or Tinder account becomes a welcome distraction on those train tracks because I can pretend I’m not part of that world. Or, the world, actually. The world that has existed for billions of years before me and will for billions (maybe?) after me. I can ignore that billions of people have lived the same time constrained life that I lead. And except for a very select few, the world continued on much the same after the death of each one.

It’s not meant to sound bleak and as far as I know I’m not a nihilist. There is comfort to be found in universal experiences. It sucks, but at least we’re all in this together. At least I’m one of the gang. But in folding fully into an online life we don’t notice the sapling by our foot that wont be the sky-reaching sequoia until after we’re gone. We don’t hear the shouts of the spectators as they roared for their favorite gladiator as we walk the streets in Rome. We shut out both yesterday and tomorrow. If we don’t let time in, we can’t mount our best defense against the gloom that finds us no matter where we hide. We opt out of close relationships and mutual bonds. We opt out of vulnerability and the task of meaningful connection. We lose that which can add a little heft to our speck of dust for the time that we’re here. Connecting IRL hurts because we are made aware of both our and another’s mortality. But IRL the burden is then shared. I may just be a speck of dust to the world, and so may you. But to each other we could be something more.

Regardless of your opinion of country music, many songs in the genre have great lyrics. I think these from Brad Paisley are appropriate. From: The World

That's alright, that's ok
When you don't feel important honey all l've got to say is
To the world
You may be just another girl
But to me
Baby, you are the world

You think you're one of millions
But you're one in a million to me
When you wonder if you matter, baby
Look into my eyes
And tell me, can't you see
You're everything to me