The Insignificance of Humanity.

I started my new job a few weeks ago, and I can honestly say that I really enjoy the work I do and the people I work with. I teach maths and frankly its a job which gives a lot of variety but can be very tiring, as it is I take part in a 2 hour commute to work every day so I often come home shattered.

The commute to London is strange. In the morning I wait for the 6.47 train to pull up, while I see weary looking ‘humans’ stumble on and find a seat to sleep on. Thirty minutes into my journey the train fills up with scores of other commuters, each glued to their phones, ipods and books even. Silence envelops the carriage, nobody dares to strike up a conversation with someone else to be branded a weirdo or god forbid….a nice person. My stop approaches and I begin to shuffle to the door so that I can be the first one out, I often fail but it is a worthy effort.

What happened next shook me for life. But when I tell you the story it is not something extra-ordinary or complicated. You can experience this yourself in your everyday life and yet take it for granted.

I ambled off the train and proceeded to walk very quickly in an ordered fashion to my next platform. It was here I noticed my shoes were untied so I managed to squeeze out of the rat-race and sit down on a platform bench. Instead of rushing to my next train I decided to sit for a while, maybe I was lazy but I wanted to catch a breath. I sat there while I saw what seemed to be the whole human race pass before my very eyes; worried expressions on their faces as they tried to get to work on time. Some were running faster than Usain Bolt, if indeed possible. I looked up the Shard, a modern skyscraper recently constructed to show London economic and financial ‘strength’…

A thought clicked in; I wonder what life looks like from the top of that tall building?  What would I see? A brilliant sunrise maybe, or the vast concrete jungle that is London in its glory?

Ants.

That’s the first thought that came to my head if I imagined myself on that skyscraper…ants. Consider it, I look down on London Bridge train station and I see thousands of little things running in a chaotic manner from A to B to C to infinity. Some of these little things would run, some would walk while others will stop altogether. It immediately reminded me of a vision from my childhood when I saw an ants nest in my garden, upon kicking a football at it all the ants descended into anarchy while they tried to make sense of the situation at hand.

What do you think when you see some ants? The first word that comes to mind is how insignificant they seem compared to you in size and strength. In fact I know some kids have a sadistic pleasure in killing them for some odd reason, such was their disdain for these creatures (or good parenting according to my mum).

So I considered zooming out of my scenario, I imagined myself in a plane then in space. The conclusion was the same, we are so insignificant in our universe and yet we consider ourselves to be pretty valuable to the world we live in. I guess this is how people first thought about the existence of God all those thousands of years ago…religion to them made sense of all this.

All of us, our feelings, emotions, lusts and ego pale in comparison to what our relative place in the universe is. But still, everyday we wake up, get on the train and live a life completely devoid of this bone shattering knowledge, such is our tunnel vision!

For those of you who think this is quite a narcissistic view on the world then just take a second to try my thought experiment. Imagine yourself on top of the Eiffel tower or Empire State Building and think clearly about what you see, not the buildings or the streets but the individual people themselves.

Don’t get me wrong as humans we have done a lot, but when the world ends…the universe will still carry on with out without us. It certainly humbled me and I think once this thought dawns on a lot of people then it would silence them also. 7 billion humans on this Earth and counting…each one with dreams and aspirations.

I heard a conductors whistle and snapped out of my thoughts, then realized that I had 2 minutes to run to my next train.

Headphones inserted, press the play button…get on with my insignificant life.