Infinitesimal

Sometimes I feel like a nomad, drifting through this world, never really a part of it. My room a wasteland of clothes strewn around, books thrown on a stack creating a makeshift library, my desk an ever-growing sea of papers, folders, cables, memory sticks and other little nicknacks, furniture that doesn't quite match and a multitude of memorabilia from my life stored away in an ethereal world.

I can sit on a bus, go through life's daily motions and still feel like I'm not actually there. Like I'm somewhere else, though I'm not quite sure where this 'somewhere else' is. I know this might sound quite existentialistic of me, but I hope that some of you can understand this kind of disconnectedness, this sense of permeability, as if you're translucent.

It's happened to me so many times before that I've come to believe this 'flaw' of mine to be intrinsic to my character. Maybe it's all in my head, or maybe it's in my genes. I'm not quite sure which of these I'd prefer. If it was just a condition of the mind, than surely I should be able to relinquish such thoughts, shouldn't I? And if it's a matter of DNA, than I should just abandon all hope now, right? Because until the day genetics crack the human genome, my genes won't magically rearrange themselves to my personal needs.

The curious part about this is the fact that, although it is not the world's greatest experience, I don't altogether dread the feeling either. In a way, it gives some perspective, because here we are, a population just shy of seven billion people, yet we are surrounded by an infinite black horizon which seems to be filled with nothing else but empty rocks and searing hot balls of plasma held together only by gravity.

But what is it that keeps us from floating off this rock and drifting far, far away? Are we connected by people, by the lives we lead, the jobs we have, the steps we take? Or quite the opposite, the steps not taken, the jobs we said 'no' to, the lives we didn't lead and the people who never got to be a part of our lives? What is it then than keeps us from floating away? What is it that makes us stay? 

We are just infinitesimal dots scattered across a 148,940 km² patch of land on a small planet in one of the corners of the Milky Way so it would seem only natural that a member of the human species should feel exactly like this. After all, compared to the vastness that stretches around us, how could we not feel this way? If ever a human being should want to make a difference, he should try to do so on this old piece of rock, right? Because let's face it, the chances of that specific human reaching out into the farthest reaches of the universe and actually make a difference there, seems equally as infinitesimal as he is himself, is it not? 

Maybe it's good to feel this kind of translusency every once in a while. It makes us realize how valuable these precious years are in this world and how important it is to be the best version of us to make sure that this old piece of rock actually remembers us. And if for some reason, the rocks can't seem to hold on to a thought, than we should try to enstill such thoughts in the minds of the people around us, so we - and by 'we' I actually mean I - can try and come back down to Earth, instead of floating off. Maybe then, I can actually stay.