Stacy Bias

Things I Keep Telling Myself, Volume 1: It’s OK to be irrelevant.

It’s easy to get in a huff over things. Little slights. Big rejections. It’s easy to beat ourselves up over our perceived flaws or failures. It’s also easy to over-congratulate ourselves on our success and good fortune. Over and over I see power struggles, battles of ego and intelligence, marked like graffiti on the walls of social media. Over and over, self-appointed experts are challenged and react defensively, posting long diatribes discrediting any who dare disagree with them. Over and over, facts and figures are spouted as if they have merit when we all know deep down that truth is exactly as transient as the next thing we learn — and we’re always learning something. We struggle and fight for the limited resources of visibility, credit and congratulations, but what we do not know yet is infinite. What we haven’t yet thought to say is immeasurable. There is enough. There is enough truth for all of us, even the truths that contradict. The trick is holding that space when others cannot. And when I need to hold that space and fear I will be unable, this is what I tell myself: (this can also be applied on days when you feel like everyone is staring at/judging you – and I find that quite a lot harder to put into practice. It’s great when it works, though!)

Sometimes there is relief in knowing exactly how irrelevant you are. No matter how much you achieve – or do not – you are a speck of a speck of dust in the infinity of the universe. However much you know, there is infinitely more to know. However great your loss, there is infinitely more sorrow. However much you are hailed or exalted, however much you fail or are slighted – take solace in the vastness around you. There is freedom in anonymity. There is release in insignificance. We’re here. And then we’re not. Live.