The Invisible Speck

We are going to perform a little thought experiment. First, I want to take us up the scales of the ray of creation, but I will walk us up slowly, so we don't take too big a leap.

You sit and read this, and consider your body. It is in one place at one time. It has weight and it has life within it. Now it is large, but how big is it within your apartment or house? Still pretty big.

What about your block, your neighborhood? Now you may still be quite large, but you are only one among many as you go to the store and say hello to the people you see every day, shopkeepers and other neighbors.

What about your town or city? Depending upon the size of your town you may get quite small, or in the case of NYC, you may disappear in the crowd altogether. This means that you are now a speck.

What about in your country? You are now indistinguishable, unless you hold public office or in some other way are one of the few that are in a position to be known, a writer or singer or actor, where the compass of your activities have so to say, enlarged your "image" so that you still exist as an individual, but even then, as yourself in one body at one place at one time you have disappeared from view.

What about the Earth? Can you be seen from outer space? Of course not. Some aspects of the works and structures of mankind as a whole can be seen from low altitude orbit, but not an individual person. Everyone has now disappeared. What about within the Solar System? Even all of life on Earth is now just a super-thin coating on a small planet, like a smear of gold plating that is one micron thin, on a planet with an atmosphere that is also a thin wisp of gas held tenuously to the planet by gravity; the outer edge of which is allowing molecules to fly off and arrive as they are wont to do. Where are you now? Your body, your mind, your emotions. They are as if they do not exist whatsoever, except as part of an almost invisible slime of biomass under a tiny layer of gas on a tiny planet.

Now we move to the galaxy, our Galaxy, which we call the Milky Way. Can you find yourself in the Galaxy? Perhaps you have heard that the Earth exists on a subdivision of ring "D" of the Galactic arms, far from the center of the galaxy, way out in the suburbs so to speak. Now not only your body and entire self have disappeared, but even the Earth has become a less than minute speck. Where are you in all this?

What about the known universe of known galaxies and intergalactic dust? Even the Milky way is now one of billions of galaxies, all of which exist as a somehow whole. Where have you and "I" gone? We have become as less than nothing in this scale. Nothing that is nothing that is nothing that is nothing. What kind of microscope do we need to find ourselves? Where would we begin to look? How could we even find our own Galaxy, Solar System, Planet, Land Mass, Self?

How far do your arms reach out? Three feet on either side? How long is your stride? Two to Three feet? What is the range of your personal purview? Can you effect the machinations of other men? Can you change the "world"? Or do you, as so many others do, think about things well outside their purview; talk politics and about conflicts that are on the other side of the world. Are your opinions strong? Do they carry any weight against the events you discuss? Or are they simply barroom dreams, that make you feel better, either as a relief or as a "mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore" scream?

You bemoan the injustices of man. Do your feelings and emotions have any force? Can they change anything outside of your purview? And how large is your personal purview? What is under your authority? Your health? Your financial well being? Your social life?

If you look carefully, you might see that nothing whatsoever is under your own real and substantial purview; the weather may change, your luck may give out; what the gods have granted you may be taken back.

What do you have that is your own?