It’s getting to be that time of life when I’m increasingly unlikely to being discovered as a child prodigy. I’ve come to terms (all too easily) with the fact that I will never be the world’s greatest [whatever]. I couldn’t even be the greatest [whatever] in town, unless I go to a very small town. Hmm…
The Galaxy Song by Eric Idle, from Monty Python’s “The Meaning of Life”
So what’s the point of it all? I’m not carrying the torch, or walking in anyone’s footsteps, or passing on my genes (well, I suppose it’s never too late for that. I don’t even have to be conscious to pull that off. Indeed, I wouldn’t even have to be alive.) Nothing I do is going to alter history and change the world. Except, as Gandhi said, I can be the change. And that may sum me up: a bit of change. Loose change in the pocket of the universe.
But that’s all any of us—from Aristotle to ZZ Top—can ever be. And I’m fine with that. Which is why I am a registered organ donor.
So whether your shortcoming is that you think you’re a big deal or that you feel like a meaningless speck,
consider the scale of the universe and the words of astrophysicist Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson: “the universe is in us”. Join him in recognizing “my atoms came from those stars”.
Compassionate intention to leave your organs for the benefit of others! Hopefully those guys from python won’t come looking for your liver while you’re still using it.
Okay, now stop stargazing or navel-gazing and write that novel!!! (Unless you’re striving to be the world’s best navel-gazer.)
Maybe just the best navel-gazer in town a small town. Trouble is, small towns are often home to accomplished navel-gazers.
Getting a short story out of the way first, but then I’ll get right back into my n– What’s this? Oh, lint.
“Don’t try to be a great man, just be a man. And let history make its own judgement.”
“That’s rhetorical nonsense. Who said that?” And furthermore,
“You think I want to go to the stars? I don’t even like to fly—I take trains.”