enourmous insignificance
The early hours of a march morning, dew is forming on the grass, the clear skies above reveal more stars than I can count. After a long evening meandering around country lanes I found myself sat on the sweet smelling damp grass of the hillside. I pull my dufflecoat tightly round me for warmth. The black line of the Severn in the distance cuts the view. Above the black slash I could see the flickering lights of Cardiff. Only visible on a clear night.
Have dinosaurs roamed this very hillside? Running my fingers through the grass I pull a pebble from the earth. Turning it in my cold fingers, feeling ridges, it is a fossilised shell. The cotswolds were once the seabed. Difficult even to begin to imagine how much has happened here on this now hillside. How many people have lived and died in this world.
The enormity of my insignificance seared.
A plane rummbled across the night night sky above. Sniffling while tears silently crossed my cheek. The rough cloth of my duffle-coat sleeve clumsily failed the tear sponge test.
August 2nd, 2009
“enormity of my insignificance”
Depends entirely on the scale of measurement used.
On an universal scale, the awesomeness of an individual cannot be measured because any impact is so tiny as to be hardly noticable, but on a one-to-one basis it can be easy to make your feelings felt. At least as far as I’m concerned, you seem to be able to make a powerful effect with every single post you write. I find your words so touching because even though I’ll probably never say hello in person it’s reassuring to know there are other people out there who feel the same way. That there are still people out there who are capable of caring.
The sharpness and simplicity of your words are poetic. They set my mind racing. I want to know more; I want to know the details. But I also know it would be wrong to find out. The possibility of the infinite meanings in your words make me consider myelf and my own life. And insodoing I feel the power that a shared feeling has. And it is not insignificant.
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