The world is a big place. The world is a big place and sometimes I feel small. The world is a big place and sometimes I feel… sometimes I feel so small that I question whether or not I’m even there at all. With my existence in jeopardy I meander through the crowds of commentators full of opinions on things that mean nothing without a sense of something. Anything. Context. Purpose. Self. Self. I know I have a self because I am human, and being human means I am incredibly selfish. Selfish to the point where I question whether or not anything matters if I am not real, if I am somehow disjointed from my surroundings in a way much more important than presence on a physical realm. Of course other things continue to matter; but not for me. Perpetually right and wrong at the same time, impossible to be simply one or simply the other.
The world is a bowl of cereal swimming in milk, swaying with the movement towards the table, ultimately to be destroyed in the process of bringing forth life to something greater. I am the piece that missed. I am the piece that missed the bowl cascading off the table onto the floor. I too shall be destroyed, but by a shoe, crushed into a stain. Not a stain of wine with color and passion and fortitude. A stain of dust to dissipate along the floor and in the air without even my assailant being aware of the life they have ended.
I wonder if it would be better if the world were a smaller place. I am alone. I am alone on a planet inhabited by billions of other people. Some of which I interact with. Some of which I care for. Some of which care for me. Yet I wake up alone because I go to sleep alone, and even when I’m surrounded by people whose names I know and who know mine, only very occasionally do I feel anything that makes me feel truly connected. The moments are fleeting. Inconsistent at best. Imaginary more often than not. And I don’t actually know if there has been a single time when it was reciprocated by the other person. Experience would tell me no. Not once. But maybe. So I question what would it be like if the world were a much smaller place; if no more than twenty people existed would I feel more or less lonely?
I question just how real this feeling of lonliness is at all; or is it a moment I currently reside in that has simply dragged itself across my life at multiple times in a semblance of what is my eternity but is actually just a moment. Unfortunately I don’t believe that, though I am very believing that it is impossible not to be biased when thinking about one’s self, particularly at the current time. Myself. In this case. At least for me. I find it hard to imagine that the countless times I’ve spent with others were so disconnected. And yet it’s not as hard as it should be. So I relapse to the only thing I’ve ever communicated that I know to be true: I don’t know.
“She is my world,” he answered.
“You’re world is too small if she is it.”
“You can’t criticize the size of a world”
– From Wicked by Gregory Macguire