Am I insignificant?
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OK, OK. Please calm down. Let’s take things slowly.
The word significant means “sufficiently great or important enough to be worthy of attention, something noteworthy”, according to Ms. Mirriam Webster. Significance is rooted in the Latin word signum: a mark or an indicator, combined with facere, to do or make happen.
It’s quite amazing how many meanings and inflections the word significance. can hold. Throw in the cornocopia of meanings of the simple word sign. There are good signs, bad signs or omens, signs from the catcher to the pitcher, street signs, traffic signs, neon signs, and signs of things to come.
On a psychological level we all have “significant moments” in our lives. Carlos Castaneda (or is it Don Juan himself?) stated that in our lives we have but a handful of these spiritually significant moments or turning points, moments that are significant and worth worrying about. Having only a few of these significant moments obviously means that all those other moments you have in your life don’t matter much. If a significant moment lasts say a minute or two, then 99.95% of our moments -like most of what you usually worry about -are not significant. Indeed most of what happens is quickly and conveniently forgotten.
We can also include our nocturnal REM dreams among these forgotten moments. Most of us can barely remember anything when they wake up! However, there are some powerful dreams and images that stay with us – the significant ones.
Then there’s statistical significance – which is typically defined as the probability that something is not a random occurence. In scientific experiments a statistically significant result carries a 90% or 95% chance of being correct. Of course if you repeat a 90% result a couple of times, then you’re talking about a near certainty. And that’s a significant result.
So, are you significant? Do you ask yourself: “What do I matter in this world anywaze? What difference do I really make, huh?” “What, out of all the 8 billion people walking around the globe makes me so special?” It’s true. It’s kinda unlikely. However, when you consider the unlikeliness, the statistical improbability for several hundred billion individual atoms to have so organized themselves as to have created a living creature that is currently alive and kicking and that is entertaining all that dystopian nonsense – well, that’s pretty impressive. Pretty significant, too
So don’t be so hard on yourself!
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