As The World Turns: Realizing That The Universe Doesn't Have A Center

Today’s subject has been on my radar for a while, but I was reminded of it the other day while burdening JW with my coffee-fueled theories about the myopia of those who believe that social media technologies such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. are completely commonplace, when, in fact, the average 22 year-old on the street is texting, not Twittering, downloading their music for “free” vs. using iTunes and has likely never even heard of Google Wave.

Photo by ToastyKen

All of this is a roundabout way of mourning the big picture perspective so many of us seem to lack. We’re so convinced that what absorbs our attention, gets us all hot and bothered and takes up our time and mental real estate must matter as much to everyone else because it’s naturally just that important. We fall down the rabbit hole, miss the forest for the trees, crank our camera’s zoom up as high as it will go and glorify the details at the expense of the panoramic shot. We lose our ability to put events in context. Our highs are stratospheric, ours lows crushing. The sun rises and sets on monthly sales figures, speaking points for the CEO by 3:00 PM, a thesis on a Marxist deconstruction of the Millennium Development Goals, free-range child rearing or the local hardcore scene.

It’s a big ol’ scary world out there and it’s only natural that we try to break its enormity and complexity down into manageable pieces instead of attempting to think about all of the nuts and bolts at once and risk ending up cowering under the bed clutching a sock monkey and wrapped in a Snuggie. Becoming all about one thing gives us an opportunity to exert the control we might not have over other aspects of our lives. Sure, you might feel like a crappy girlfriend, a distant brother, an apathetic employee, but your website got 75 000 hits this month, you have a nose for wine that any top-flight sommelier would kill for or you can conjugate Latin like no one’s business. It’s self-identity in life raft form and by God, you’re gonna hang onto it like an extra in Titanic. It’s called putting all of your validation eggs in one basket and it’s a strategy that will eventually come back to haunt you.

And when we get the Galileo wake-up call that the whole world doesn’t revolve around what we think it does, well, let’s just say the feeling isn’t pleasant. I speak from experience, of course. Once upon a time, I lived and breathed freedom of the press. Eventually figuring out that my passion wasn’t exactly a college-wide sentiment and that I had perhaps thrown myself head-long into a one-woman unwinnable war of attrition all but broke my cold little heart. But it also humbled me and made me a much more pragmatic person in the years since. I’ve learned that everyone has their hobby horses and their white whales, that what seems as if it is a matter of life and death to me wouldn’t even be a blip on the radar to the barista brewing up my coffee or the elderly man sitting next to me on the bus. I no longer allow myself the luxury of believing that I’m one of the universe’s VIPs and that there is any sort of special significance or game-changing status attached to the ideas, fields, pursuits and interests that absorb me. And I encourage you to start doing likewise.

Step backward and keep stepping (watch out for trees, though) until the molehills start appearing less mountainous. Keep stepping until your personal landscape starts looking less like you’re viewing it through a distorted fun house mirror and more to a scale that reflects the social, economic, cultural and political realities of one tiny little planet inhabited by 6.8 billion people who all believe steadfastly in the universality of their own particular priorities, loves and losses.

It’s scary, it’s humbling as hell (and it might take you a while to deal with  how insignificant and empty it feels to no longer believe in linchpins), but it’s also a relief. You’re not Atlas; you’re just a regular old single-minded narcissist like the rest of us.

P.S. Social media is not the Second Coming. F’reals.