on being small in the world

Two bits that I’ve always liked, speaking about being small in the world.

I Like Giants, a song by Kimya Dawson:

Rock and roll is fun but if you ever hear someone

Say you are huge look at the moon, look at the stars, look at the sun

Look at the ocean and the desert and the mountains and the sky

Say I am just a speck of dust inside a giant's eye

I am just a speck of dust inside a giant's eye

An extract from On The Vanity of Existence, an essay by Arthur Schopenhauer:

...if we turn from this, and look at life in its small details, as presented, say, in a comedy, how ridiculous it all seems! It is like a drop of water seen through a microscope, a single drop teeming with infusoria; or a speck of cheese full of mites invisible to the naked eye. How we laugh as they bustle about so eagerly, and struggle with one another in so tiny a space! And whether here, or in the little span of human life this terrible activity produces a comedic effect.

It is only in the microscope that our life looks so big. It is an indivisible point, drawn out and magnified by the powerful lenses of Time and Space.