How do we measure significance? 8 plus billion people on this planet in this moment the width of a breath, of which I am one and that within a hundred years 99.9%, including myself will no longer be around. All 8+ billion asking, hoping, demanding significance?

Last night I was thinking about what I wrote about suffering, transcendence, surrender and strength. My thoughts turned to the Lords Prayer – “Thy Will be done” – surrender, strength, hubris? Growing up I wondered if it was a statement of fact or if G_d desired our consent or maybe a bit of both. Surrender or not, Life will is going to do/be what Life must. I wondered of the hubris of thinking my surrender was required so that G_d could be G_d. Such hubris I must have felt myself as significant a open invite to suffering.

Joseph Campbell talked about one of the roles of Myth was to show us our place in the world and society, to center us. I view the Load’s Prayer as a centering prayer where we see we are smaller then small AND bigger then big. The prayer resonates with hermetic riddle – As above so below, as below so above. Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven – As above so below – we are smaller then small, insignificant. Latter the ask that we be Forgiven as we forgive – as below so above – we are co-creators, Bigger then Big. How we are to ourselves and others not only matters to the experience of Life but can shape it.

The notion of significance dependent on perceptive. It seems to me we are both in every moment. A image of myself rafting down rapids, falling into the waters. Feet pointed down river, relax, surrender as acknowledgment to the power of the water, small movements bring me to shore.

Last night I lay in bed imaging the number of atoms that make up this body called Peter. I wonder of all the atoms how many I controlled or influenced? I compared that to the number of atoms surrounding me in the room, in the city, country, world, universe. Insignificant plaything, yet.. what of this ‘I’ that was measuring, comparing. Without this experience of ‘I’ would the atoms matter. 8+ billion ‘I’s plus all the animal ‘I’s all the plants, rocks… ‘I’s – Life – striving for Life, feeling, seeing, hearing… it self. If a tree falls in the woods with nothing to see, hear or feel it… did it, was it.. at all?

Jung believed that significance in life is found through the process of individuation, which involves becoming aware of the unconscious and integrating it with the conscious mind. Jung saw the feeling of insignificance as a sign of a deeper “spiritual problem” that modern individuals often face. He believed that these feelings are not simply a lack of self-worth, but a symptom of a lack of meaning and purpose in life, often stemming from a disconnection from one’s inner self and the unconscious.

Joseph Campbell argued that the true significance we seek in life is not a predefined meaning, but rather the experience of being alive and the feeling of connection to our inner reality. He believed that the rapture of living, of feeling the resonance between our external experiences and our inner being, is the ultimate goal. Significance not being found in a grand, external answer, but in the profound, personal experience of being present and connected to life’s rhythms.

Krishnamurti suggests that understanding the true significance of life lies in recognizing the nature of desire and the mind’s relationship to it. He emphasized the importance of being fully aware of our thoughts and emotions without judgment or attachment. By doing so, one can begin to see the limitations of clinging to ideas of self and the world, paving the way for a more profound understanding and experience that is life

The Buddha’s teachings concept of emptiness (sunyata), suggest a perspective on significance that emphasizes the interconnectedness and impermanence of all things. Rather than seeking inherent significance in individual entities, the Buddha encourages understanding the interdependent nature of reality, where things are not fixed or self-existent. This perspective leads to a more compassionate and mindful approach to life, free from the attachment to ego-driven notions of self-importance and significance.

To the question – Do I feel insignificant – yes all the time. Is that the ‘real’ question (quest) being asked….

Richard Wagamese: “My mother’s physical death taught me that I didn’t come here to master devastating situation, circumstances, changes, losses or even my own feelings. I came her to experience them. I came here for soul lessons and spirit teachings to carry on in this journey we are all on, this teaching way, this blessing way. In the end, I can, like my mother has done, return to the beauty that I was when I first arrived here.

Richard: What is the point of prayer and meditation?
Grandmother: To bring you closer to the Great Mystery.
Richard: So I can understand it?
Grandmother: No, so you can participate in it.

The question of a measurement of significant fades…

Anita

“Eight-plus billion people on this planet, each existing within the width of a breath”—but how many truly love and are loved in return?
I suspect all eight billion wonder… then I hear a voice whisper, who am I to ask of life such a thing?

Love as a temporal measurement and experience is always going to fall short. My feeling was that Richard, along with Jung, Campbell, Buddha Krishnamurti, was that what is significant is experience itself. To participate. That from the perspective of Life, participation in all its forms is Love. That from which we arrive and return.

Love that exists beyond the ticking of clocks; it’s felt in echoes, in the imprint it leaves, in the ways it changes us. A single moment of real connection can reverberate through a lifetime.

But that isn’t what being looking for, or behind the question of significance and pain such questions bring. The real question isn’t just about love itself, but about the weight it carries—the longing, the ache, the quiet desperation for significance in the face of impermanence. Love, when examined too closely revealing all the spaces where we’ve been wounded, all the unanswered questions left behind by the loves that did not stay or did not fulfill. Maybe it’s less about defining love and more about reckoning with what it leaves behind—the imprints, the shadows, the moments that haunt or heal. Love isn’t always gentle, but it’s always significant.

I recall the days the excitement, the fire, the bliss of being possessed by love. There’s something intoxicating about those early moments— the unfiltered passion, the consuming energy, the way love feels like it’s overtaken every inch of you, a kind of surrender, a beautiful chaos that colors everything in a different light (even if only the idea of love)…. until… the clock ticks… and we measure…

One of the blessing of getting older is the discovery of being able to love without a desire to process or be processed. A love that doesn’t demand, doesn’t consume, but simply exists in its own quiet strength. Can it be enough? What are we to do if it not…

Each day, each moment I hear, from myself, from everyone, all 8 billion voices… the cry, see me, know me, love me… the suffering that connects all… what are we to do? Bigger then big, smaller then small, what are we to do?

That cry—so vast, yet so intimate — the heartbeat of existence. Beneath the layers of ambition, fear, and longing, the universal plea: witness me, understand me, love me.

We suffer because we are bound to one another, woven into the same fragile, aching fabric of humanity. It’s overwhelming, both the enormity of it and the crushing smallness of a single life within it. And yet, the answer, though elusive, might not be grand or complicated.

Maybe it starts in the smallest acts offering presence, kindness, truly seeing another. Maybe it’s in allowing ourselves to be seen in return. If love and suffering are the unifying forces, then perhaps the response isn’t in solving or escaping, but in choosing, choosing to love, to reach, to acknowledge.

None of us can bear the weight of eight billion cries, but each of us can ease one, if only for a moment. And maybe, just maybe, that’s enough.

Hi Anita
“Something for me to understand. how?” Using Richards words – “No, so you can participate in it”

When does understanding become wisdom?

What does a hurt feeling feel like? The space between emotion to feeling to a measurement, label, judgment… as thin as a breath. I wonder if we even notice how quickly and subtly we move from raw experience to interpretation, deciding good and bad… Yet its the breath thin space where mindfulness lives…

“Without love, do what you will, be as clever as you like, you will solve nothing.” – A criticism of Krishnamurti who was himself accused of being too clever with his words and paradoxically path to love was though negation, Emptiness, Kenosis, silence the undoing of words – what I think of as non measurement.

In the space between emotion and feeling were feelings hurt? No one that knows me would think me clever though as I have expressed before I have been accused me a lacking feeling, that my communication style and personalty type is lacking, away to avoid feeling… I don’t disagree, sadly its a core part of who I am. A trigger where I fill the space with a suspicion I’m not suited for relationship, something I fear my history confirms.

Funny when I saw this topic the first thing I wrote was a warning to myself, that any discussion into insignificance would only stir up existential angst and likely not end well.